In Loving Memory
by kirstycream
Summary: Roxas tells the story of his teenage life and how the only person that truely mattered to him held such a firm grip on his existance. Axel/Roxas AkuRoku. Rated M for sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello there. So I've been writing this for a while, shifting it around, cleaning it up, then completely changing it all over again. I was iffy about putting it up on here because of how long it took me to write and I know you lot like your quick updates. But I promise you, if you give me time you will not be let down._

_Now originally I wrote this on a whim, then I really started to put effort into it, and eventually the whole story started connecting to me and my life. It's not really a story that strings together to create a structured plot, it's a story that goes in all kinds of directions, but that is why I love writing it so much and I really, really hope you understand it._

_I do like nice reviews and I do accept critique (to an extent)._

**Ps. Pleeeeaaase don't be put off by how long the first chapter is and how it drags on. This is **_**just**_** the intro chapter, I promise you.**

xxxx

Nothing interesting ever happens in this town. My town. _Our _town.

It's a place of simple luxuries and normal goings on. We work, we play, we live and we sleep. Isn't that what any normal person would expect? Sure we'd dream of other things like being rich and famous, living out there in Hollywood. But this wasn't Hollywood, not even close. This was South England, the United Kingdom of our dear Queen Elizabeth the second. America seemed like a nice idea, but I thought I'd stay here where my life had begun and will probably end.

What I'm about to tell you is not a fairy-tale, not a game, not a fantasy. It is the story of my life, my days on earth and the bits in-between. The life God didn't obsess over because he'd messed up far too early in the game.

The reason I'm telling you, is because I owe it to someone. I want this huge memory to be written down in permanent ink, laminated, framed, and then passed down to another so they can see exactly what it was like and imagine it all… then _they_ can remember what it was like for me to live my life with that person, because the memory deserves to be shared forever. The person I mentioned is worthy to be remembered and never forgotten. No matter who may read this story, they will never forget, and I want every generation to read and remember, always at least one sole _remembering_ every single detail… about the person that my whole life and being is dedicated to.

I'm going to tell you the truth and the truth alone.

xxx

The only point in my life that ever excited me and held a firm grip of existence had quickly rounded off to the next point.

Student life.

It's pretty easy isn't it? Your life in a nutshell would consist of spending your days being paid to learn, making and losing new friends, lounging around studying, going to wild parties and getting wasted, not giving a damn about anyone without getting judged by it, having sex as many times as you want because you're not married or chained the metal ball of 'serious relationship', you could dress how you want, eat what you want, _do _what you want.

But surely all those things we had were there to make up for something. To compensate for a huge weight on our backs. Maybe because of all the damn hormones we got and stress we built up out of nothing. The endless amount of coursework that sent our brains into overdrive that really only took us an hour to complete. The boyfriends and the girlfriends and the things in-between. It's hardly controllable, it's just what happens, and it happens to us all. We would also think too much about our physical needs. Pleasure; sex. Escape; drugs. Superiority; violence. Power; vandalism. Acceptance; gangs. We do it because our heads get screwed up easily during these tender years. Our emotions are fragile. One powerful word and our mind could go from Tots TV to Playboy Magazine.

As for me, if you really _should_ know, my head wasn't screwed. My head was perfect as far as I was aware.

Perhaps I was clueless? Sometimes we don't realise things about ourselves until it's proven dramatically. Like when you're a child; you don't realise that running in front of a car is dangerous until you witness your very first golden puppy get flattened by the wheels of a ten ton truck. If those realisations don't hit you hard in the face, then, well, you're screwed.

You could spend your entire life not knowing something about yourself. Even when you're lying on your death bed you could still be blissfully unaware of something that could have changed your whole world.

Let me tell you a little about myself, or what I know for the moment.

My name is Roxas, and I am an eighteen year old student. I live a practically comfortable life. I have a girlfriend, an apartment, a best friend, and an education. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But still, we all have our own little ups and downs of the past.

- My Prologue-

We'll start with the basics.

I won't start with this Act 1, Scene 1 crap. Because you really don't want the gory details of how I was conceived and what it felt like to be born. As if I could or would tell you those things anyway, idiot.

I'll start at around Act 2, scene 4, if you want. But hell, I don't even know what act or what scene it was, I don't work in fucking theatre. If you want something like that then go ahead and read a Shakespeare script.

So anyway, I can't tell you much of my parents, because really I never knew them. They abandoned me at the tender age of three and left me home alone without a scrap of food, or even a stool for me reach the tap for water.

I guess you didn't see _that_ one coming.

I can't remember much of those three little years. In fact, I only remember one snippet of a memory that even looks like a blur right now. What it was, was something along the lines of my mother's smile. It was a smile on the outside, a smile she probably hoped looked like a smile, but with my tiny little baby eyes I could see right through her. The smile was full of something like regret, a smile that wasn't supposed to be a smile but a dying look of total and utter unhappiness. I remember the smile making me feel miserable and eventually it made me cry, and after that, I couldn't possibly tell you.

So when they left, I remember for five days I screamed and cried for my parents to come home. Yeah I screamed, and I cried, but what help did that do? I wonder even now why the neighbours hadn't heard me. I guess the shits didn't really care. So I screamed until my grandparents showed up and found me curled up the corner of the living room with my favourite Whinny The Pooh blanket.

What happened to my parents I still and probably never will know.

I suppose that's not very ordinary, but it never upset me afterwards, it's never really got to me that my parents never wanted or loved me. I suppose it's easy not to care when you never really knew them in the first place. And that smile, that awful, un-motherly smile always reassured me that it was _okay_ not to care. So I won't bore you with the angst or the misery I went through back then. It means nothing now, I mean, all we ever did at that age is fucking cry about shit anyway.

My grandparents looked after me, raised me, and I grew to love them like the parents I never had. Until I was nine years old.

I was in my forth year of school when a woman dressed in a dulled out suit walked through the door of our colourful painting room. When sad eyes travelled toward my own from her direction, even at that age I could tell something was wrong, just by that one look. I was told my grandparents had both had a heart attack. At the same fucking time. What were the odds of that? Later I would be told my granddad had the heart attack because he saw my grandma have the heart attack. I didn't blame them though, it wasn't their fault. They were old. These things just happen.

You can tell I'm skipping through my young age fast, can't you? Well, you try thinking back to your toddler days and see if you can remember graphics details of each day. It's not as if my entire childhood was full of drama and unfortunate events… quite the opposite.

I stayed in school and eventually was put into foster care. I don't remember being scared, don't remember worrying about whether I'll be chucked in with Michael Jackson and his play park of wonders. I don't even think I cared that much. I just wanted somewhere to eat and sleep, which was a very mature thing to think about at that age if you ask me.

I walked into the house with my social worker, and that's where I instantly met Axel. And by instantly, I do mean instantly. He'd waited for the door to open, and when it did, he fired all sorts of words at me that I found hard to put together because of how shockingly surprised I was at the colour of his hair.

He was the only son of my new foster parents, and was only a year older than me. He was a nutcase, a totally polar opposite of myself. I didn't know how to act around him at first, had no idea what to say or do. In a way he was intimidating, but after a while of simply listening to him talk I found it easier to ease up. He wasn't nasty, wasn't a brute bully, wasn't even a spoilt brat. He was a nutcase. Before I knew it, he was my favourite person ever. He had his ups and downs, like being a pyromaniac at the age of ten… yeah. He was bizarre, but I ended up loving it.

As I got to know him better, he made sure I didn't turn into a complete social outcast because of what had happened to me in the past, he made sure I was happy all the time and told me everything about life and what the future would hold for us both.

I listened to him, listened to his wild stories and his boasting, listened to every word. It made me laugh, and it made me realise that being a kid was a lot easier to understand when you learnt from a master. I didn't know a lot about living before, probably because I was living with my grandparents who were on the brink of death.

Axel told me fascinating stories of his life, and I always wondered why I hadn't done those things as well. Why hadn't I snuck out of the house at night to go sneak in the school and steal as many toys as I could? Why hadn't I thrown a water balloon at anyone's head? Why hadn't I ever played Blind Man's Bluff? I felt like such a fool around him. He was such a rebel child back then, always getting into trouble and never ending the shit he got himself into. I just sat back and watched with my angel wings stuck securely on my back, and damn, they needed a fine good clipping.

He took me out to play football and tennis and all sorts of other sports I'd never played before. I always did wonder and sometimes still do if he ever did those things out of pure pity. I imagined through Axel's eyes I was some poor sap who'd never before lived his life, and Axel must have felt an enormous sense of responsibility in not letting that happen anymore. Was that the case? Who knows.

He showed me his 'skills' with fire, and to be honest, even _that_ fascinated me, that a child his age was completely obsessed with such a wild element. He'd told me he loved how it could viciously get rid of anything it didn't like, and so easily. Weak paper, dull wood, dead grass. He wanted to be just like fire, destroy the things he didn't like in either one quick swoop or in one slowly torturing movement. He wanted to rid his enemies, obliterate those who dared interfere with his happiness, and it was nothing like the kid-fantasies I'd ever heard of.

A night we'd sit on the sand of the quiet beach that was just round the corner of our house. We'd watch the fire shine in our young and innocent eyes. Sometime's I felt inferior around it, because Axel's eyes would dive deeper into the fire then mine ever could.

He'd say, "A fire could destroy anything it wanted to. Whether it took time or not. No one would fight fire."

I'd say, "but even a wild fire would die away eventually."

Axel, he wasn't a stable kid. Wasn't one of God's perfect little children. As far as a stable young rebellious pyromaniac could be, I didn't know, but I knew there was an important fragment in his mind that wasn't quite all there. He even in some points of his life had to be on medication for his slight obsession. I never judged him for it though, not for a second. When I would watch him from across the flickering flames, I knew that imperfection was what I loved most about him. He wasn't like everyone else. That fire represented him well, he was a creation that could never be predicted or tamed correctly.

The colour of his hair always reminded me of those fiery nights.

You would think I'd be pretty shy and iffy around doing those kinds of things because of how inexperienced I was with, well, life. But I was an outgoing person, always have been, and that made things a lot easier when it came to meeting new people.

He introduced me to his friends at school, and to my surprise, they let me hang out with them, they accepted me. There was Zexion, Riku, Sora, Demyx, Kairi, Namine, Hayner and Ollete. Even though I always worried about it, Axel always assured me they were in no way out of my league and would never tease or pick on me.

He always made sure I was happy.

When I was twelve I realised my life was perfect. I had great friends, I was a hard worker at school and always got the grades I wanted, I had a friend who was always there for me who knew how to have fun, and I finally had a family again.

By the time I was fifteen I began to grow really attracted to Namine. And stop, I know what you're thinking. Typical teenage boy. Well, fuck you. Could you blame me? She was gorgeous. Soft blonde hair, dazzling blue eyes and a perfect body; what any kid that age would dream of dating.

When I first met her along with the gang, I was a nervous wreck, but as time went by and she grew fond of my outgoing nature and my apparent cute baby blues. We grew completely comfortable with each other. I spent the most time with her out of the gang, apart from Axel of course.

Axel would always ask me why I spent so much time with her, and I would laugh and say that she was a really nice girl. He would scrunch his nose up like he did and just say "must be a weird blond thing."

One night when myself and Namine were studying at her house, she leant in and kissed me, telling me she couldn't stop thinking about me. I blushed hard, I was so nervous inside you wouldn't believe, but my heart was skipping beats almost every second she stared at me with those big blue sapphires, and I knew that it was right. I kissed her back and told her the same. That night I lost my virginity, and she had lost hers. It's strange now, saying that I'd had my first kiss and lost my virginity _and _had a virgin on the same night with the same person. People would tell me it was the start of a perfect love story. I would tell them to piss right off.

It was perfect at the time though because of how naïve and young we both were. So a couple weeks later, we agreed to go steady.

When Axel found out, I was surprised at his reaction. He didn't smile, didn't congratulate me, didn't high five me. He just looked at the floor. We sat crossed legged across from each other on the living room rug and I looked at him, edging my head forward a little to try and see his face. I asked him if he was alright, then after a few seconds he lifted his head and gave me a surprisingly huge grin, a grin that didn't make sense at all. He said to me; 'If it's what makes you happy, Roxas.'

I was happy that Axel had accepted my relationship with Namine, and I promised him I wouldn't abandon him. Having a best friend like Axel was almost like having a boyfriend without all the intimate sexy stuff. So I had to share out my time with Namine and Axel. It felt kind of weird. It felt like I had two girlfriends.

I'd spend my nights playing PlaySation with Axel. He would always win the racing games, and I would always win the boring patience games. When I look back on that now, it kind of made sense why. We'd even have midnight snacks and make those makeshift tents between our two beds using our bed sheets. The torch light would be in the middle, and we would be either side of it, smiling childishly at each other as the light shone up our soft little faces. Whenever I paid enough attention, I would notice this little glint in his eye when the light hit them in just the right place. What it was I never understood, and I would never question it again.

A couple of months later, one day he suddenly didn't look right. He was silent and looked nervous every time he looked at me. He wasn't ill, hadn't caught the flu, as far as I was aware anyway. I wasn't sure whether I should ask him about it. Maybe his mum had told him off about something and now he was just in pure shame. Yeah. Shame is what it looked like. I decided I'd better go talk to him privately instead of at the dinner table in front of his parents, so I grabbed his hand and dragged him upstairs into our bedroom. I sat him down on his bed and ordered him to tell me what was wrong. He simply bit his lip and looked me in the eye.

"I kissed Demyx," was all he said.

Now, I wasn't entirely prepared to hear something like that, not prepared at all, so all I could do was stupidly say; "What?"

"Roxas… I, I don't know." He stuttered and edged around his awkward words. He grabbed his flame red hair in frustration and crouched his head as I sat slowly on my bed opposite, never taking my concentration off of him. "Just recently I've not been able to think of anything but him, he's… he's gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that should only appear on girls, like Namine. I don't know why, why I'm like this, I just want him so bad." He was almost crying, choking on his words as if he was angry with himself. Every word he said was just dripping with shame.

I didn't know what I was feeling. I was honestly lost for words. Should I have felt like it was wrong? Or like it was just plain Axel? Axel was never into fitting in with the crowd anyway.

I'll tell you what I felt back then, oh I'll tell you. It felt weird that Axel's attention was on someone else but me. If he had openly admitted those kind of feelings because it was about me, fine, who gave a rat's arse? But someone else? _DEMYX?!_ The non-stop-talking-sitar-playing-lame-joking _Demyx_?!

Him talking that way about someone else… I felt… jealous? Why was I jealous? I thought Axel was going to spend all his time with Demyx, he'd forget about little Roxy, he'd make sure Demyx was nothing but happy.

I tried not to sound bitter, but damn I failed, "did he kiss you back?"

"…Yeah."

I felt crushed. Like my source of my happiness was being hidden and stolen away by that evil rat, Demyx.

After that, all I could do was accept Axel's new orientation, and I tried to reassure him that he wasn't a freak of nature. It was just… life. I tried to accept Demyx as well, but that one needed a little time.

I tried so hard to be happy with Namine after that, but the thought of Axel with Demyx annoyed me. Every time she'd kiss me I'd think 'I wonder if it feels like this for him?' or 'I wonder if Axel likes playing with Demyx's hair like I do Namine's?'

To my disgust, Axel spent more and more time with Demyx. Going to his shows, staying over his house, eating with him at lunch. I felt so lonely in the tent when he wasn't there. Eating slowly at a packet of smoky bacon crisps with nothing but silence and darkness to accompany me. He would say he was sorry, but he wasn't sorry. I knew he wasn't sorry, _knew_ he wasn't sorry about spending an incredible night with the man of his dreams, _Demyx_.

Every time I thought of or said that awful name, I spat it.

I spent more time with Namine because of the spare time I had. Of course he didn't forget about me though. Oh no. Axel would always surprise me by buying us pizza and renting out a movie, telling me he'd cancelled his date with Demyx for me. It actually made my heart flutter, as pansy and lame as that might sound.

A few months after that, Axel told me he was now going steady with Demyx. It was hard, but I had to accept it. I wanted Axel to be happy as well, and right then, Demyx was doing a fine job at it.

Funnily enough, the scene of when he told me was the exact scene when I told him about Namine. We were on the living room rug, sat crossed legged across from each other, and I'd look at the floor, he'd ask me if I was okay, and I would just say 'whatever makes you happy, Axel.'

I don't want you to think I'm lying clichés into this story just to make it sound better for you. I'm actually not. That did happen, and trust me, to yours and my dismay, there will be a lot more.

I remember nearly every 'first-timer' I had with Axel. From the first time I made a mud pie… to the first time I stole his mum's makeup, jewellery, and her favourite dress and put it all on so that Axel could pretend he had a girlfriend for the school dance.

Demyx refused to go with him. I never understood why I had to dress up like a girl, but it had something to do with Demyx not letting him go with another guy. So, Axel being typical Axel, wormed his way into a ridiculous solution involving me changing my name to Roxanne and our rather awkward first kiss.

It was the night of the dance and I was sat there in our room in this pink puffy dress, pouting annoyingly on his bed while he tightened up his black tie.

"Oh Christ Roxas, smile would you? Anyone would recognise that moody pout from a mile away."

"If you wanted to go so bad, why didn't you just go on your own?" I sighed. "Namine's going to kill me if she finds me out."

"Namine's not going though."

"Only because I told her I'm not. I feel like such an asshole Axel."

Axel sat down next to me as I starred straight ahead, pissed off to the bone. I didn't want to go to the dance in the first place. Namine showing me off to all her friends wasn't exactly my idea of fun. But when Axel offered me a solution of being able to go and have fun at the same time _without_ Namine, I had to wonder what the hell he was talking about. He said he'd repay me by doing all my chores, all my homework and any work I had to do at all for a whole year. I didn't exactly trust him on that, but man, he was so desperate.

"Listen, Roxas. You know other people have tried pulling off this stunt before. And in the end, because other people got so damn suspicious, they'd either pull the she-male's wigs right off… or lift their skirts up for all to see the truth," he'd said rather dramatically with a small shake of the head.

"Meaning….?"

"Meaning," he sighed a little, eyes wondering off the side nervously, "we need to make this realistic."

"Uh huh…?" My eyes quizzed him. I didn't get where he was going with it.

"Fuck, Roxas, we need to like, I dunno, kiss… or something."

"Kiss?"

"Yeah."

"Why?!"

"Because it's what couples do!"

"But we're not a couple."

"Jeez I know that Einstein, but we are for tonight… just, uh, I dunno…" he looked at my face, my totally blank face, and sighed heavily, "Oh forget it Roxas!"

Before he could wave his arms around, get up in a huff then leave the room in an embarrassed frenzy, I decided I'd give him a break for once. Normally, very normally, I'd laugh at that kind of thing if it were anybody else. But seeing him desperately trying to hide his embarrassment by acting all tough once again, yanking his tie up straight so he seemed busy, frowning and muttering some words about me putting a flower in my hair or something, I kind of felt a little pathetic for him. I didn't laugh in his face though, I didn't ignore him either.

I did the only thing that came to my head. I pushed his shoulder back so he faced me, and before he could yell at me asking what the fuck I was doing, I slowly but forcefully pressed my lips onto his, taking control and not being timid or embarrassed for both our sakes. I circled my arms around his neck, letting him know I wasn't taking the piss out of him. He was a little stunned at first, even though it was his fucking idea in the first place. I closed my eyes, pushing my lips a little encouragingly harder to his and fingering the tuffs of red hair on the back of his neck. He still didn't respond, and it was beginning to fuck me off, thinking it was a bad idea or that he might've been joking or something. In a little panic of the thought, I pulled myself off of him, sitting back into my slouched over position next to him, turning my head a little away from him.

"Like that?" I asked quietly, awaiting the hysterics coming from that stupid red-headed-practical-joking Axel.

But instead, he simply said with a smug smile, "Yeah, that'll do."

Kissing a male red-headed pyromaniac at the age of fifteen wasn't exactly in my line of vision when I was huddled in the corner all alone in my old living room, waiting for my parents to come home. No, not at fucking all. Life twists and turns in all crazy and unpredictable ways.

A year later on my sixteenth birthday, Axel had given me a small gift wrapped box as we sat crossed legged on my bed. He was grinning so much it scared me to open it, but he kept ushering me on, promising me this wasn't one of his pranks. Fair enough it was my sweet sixteenth, but he'd never been so excited on any of my _other_ birthdays. I wearily unravelled the small red ribbon and took the small lid off, looking into the box. Inside, laid two silver keys. I looked at Axel, his grin now even bigger.

"Keys?" I asked.

Then in a flash Axel whipped out a large piece of paper from behind his back and gave it to me. I took it, reading the contents. My eyes became huge at the picture of a big house and the big bold letters saying 'SOLD. FLAT 2B."

"Axel!" I cried, happiness overwhelming me. He'd bought us a flat. Bought us the next big step to growing up and looking after ourselves.

"It's right near the college, so let's hope we'll get accepted."

I flung myself at him, holding him in a tight embrace, completely overjoyed. I could tell you that not even I saw that hug coming, it was an instant reaction. He was a little stunned at my outburst. Perhaps he didn't think I'd be that happy about it, thinking that I might have thought we were too young for it. But when my weedy little arms hugged around his neck, he laughed and awkwardly held me back.

As soon as I felt those skinny little twigs wrap around my waist, for some reason, I felt relieved. "Thank you, so much Axel."

"Hey, stop getting so fucking soft," he said. I half laughed, not quite wanting to laugh but thought it would ease the awkwardness. I did that instead of letting go, because, well, I didn't _want _to let go. Then after a small while, and we still hadn't let go of each other, I heard a little throaty defeated noise come from him. "It's my pleasure," he said into my shoulder. I felt his arms tighten just a little, probably so little he hoped I didn't notice.

And of course, we did get accepted into the college. Our lives were turning out to be even more perfect. We were living the student dream once we were settled into our apartment. I would put up the curtains. Axel would vacuum the rug.

I went round Namine's the night before I moved in, telling her the news that I'd be moving a bit farther away. She was happy for me, giving me a warm smile telling me everything was fine. She leaned forward, kissed my lips softly and I smiled, happy she was okay with it. That night, I know she wanted to keep me there for the night, so she could show me what I'd be missing. But I was too excited to stay over. I wanted to go… home. Yeah. I wanted to call it home now. I felt like such a bastard by just up and leaving while she tried to fumble with my shirt and kiss me into temptation. She sighed, but forced a smile. And I'd tell her I'd see her soon.

That night, I did go home. I went home and I found Axel sat alarmingly close to the open fire in our living room, staring at it and throwing ripped up bits of cartridge paper into the flames. I walked in slowly, placing my shiny silver key on the side.

"Stop wasting that paper."

He jumped a little in shock, his concentration scattering and almost falling face first into the fire, and to that I jumped a little in fright at that sudden image of Axel burning in my mind. With both our hearts pumping a little bit harder, Axel turned around and looked at me.

"You trying to kill me?!"

"Sorry, er, why aren't you with Demyx?"

He looked up at me, then looked away again. "I was too excited."

I scoffed. What a pair of morons we were. Both ditching our partners because we wanted to just be home alone with our fuzzy pillows and our central heating. I looked around. "We could build the meanest tent ever."

He scooted his bum to the middle of the floor, dragging the heat from the fire with him in his almost burning t-shirt. He lied down, placing his hands underneath his head. "Is that why you came back, to build a tent?"

I grinned a little at the hint of a little flesh peeping from the end of white t-shirt and the rim of his black jeans. He noticed, and just blinked.

I laid down with him in a different angle, resting my head on his chest and stuck my legs out to the side. I didn't know why. I felt like that home held no restrictions on me; I could do whatever the hell I wanted. My dignity could be left on the outside porch to freeze for all I cared.

"We should get a job, you know. My parents can't pay for this forever," Axel had dearly noted.

"I know that."

"So? I know how much you procrastinate. You're too easy going, Roxas."

"Thanks Mum."

"Hey, fuck you, I'm just talking reality."

"So where are _you_ gonna work?"

He stopped talking for a minute, while he thought to himself. Either thinking about where exactly he'd work, or thinking about what he'd say next to either change the conversation or just make me accept it and shut up.

"I'll probably work with Demyx." Okay so he decided to shut me up _and_ piss me off.

"Great," I calmly retorted.

Maybe it was just me, but I pictured us doing that all night and probably every night. Just lying on the floor saying meaningless things. Okay so Axel tried to make the whole job thing mean something, but it was just idle banter to me right then, because half the time I never took him seriously anyway. As if he'd ever get a job.

"Hey Axel? Can I ask you something… about Demyx?"

"Sure. I'm not giving you tips on sex though, perfection cannot be taught dear little Rox-"

"I wonna know how you accepted it. You know, how you accepted such a, err, responsibility…"

What the _hell_ did I just say?

"A responsibility?" He asked, almost laughing. That one sarcastic notion pissed me off greatly. I was trying to talk to him, and all he could do was laugh in my face.

"Oh forget it," I sighed and got off of him, leaning up straight. You could tell I had a fine ability of saying things straight, couldn't you? Yeah.

Axel started laughing that stupid laugh, that taunting humiliating laugh. "Roxas are you telling me you're gay?!"

"I'm not gay!"

He started laughing again and placed a hand to his face, wiping the tears from his moronic eyes probably.

"Axel, I'm not telling you I'm gay, I'm just asking you how you dealt with it. What's so fucking funny about that?"

"How I _dealt_ with it? Roxas, it's not as if I developed brain cancer. Come on, you're acting pretty fucking stupid tonight. Maybe you should go back to Namine and get your daily does of loving, then come back to me in the morning for a check up."

He sounded bitter. And that little speech was very desperate, even for Axel, as if some fragment in that skinny body of his was hurt by what I said.

"Axel, I…"

"Hey Roxas, it's like you said all those years ago, it's natural, right?"

"Do you want me to shut up about it?"

He didn't say anything, and because my back was to him, I didn't know what he was doing. "No," he said quietly, "why'd you wonna talk about it anyway?"

I looked at the floor, biting my lip a little. "You remember that time, when you told me you'd kissed Demyx?"

"Who have you kissed?"

"No, Axel," I breathed, "Remember how ashamed you were?"

"…yeah, I guess."

I leant backwards and down again, resting my head on his flat stomach. "How did you get over it?"

I could hear the smile in his voice, a calm little content smile. "Because you accepted it."

"Me?"

"Think about it Roxas, you were the first person I told. There was a reason for that."

"Because you trusted me the most?"

"You were the only person I cared about having a problem with it. I didn't want to lose my best buddy over it."

"So you don't trust me?"

"Fuck, Roxas. There I go saying maybe the second nicest thing I've ever said to you and there _you_ go getting all paranoid about what I said not one minute ago."

"Sorry," I half laughed. Half laughed because it was funny, but I didn't want to make fun of him.

"Course I trust you."

"Hey Axel?"

"What?"

"What's the first thing?"

"_What?"_

"What's the first nicest thing you've ever said to me?"

"What, you don't know?"

"Enlighten me."

"If you don't know I'm not telling you. I've already said enough mushy things tonight."

"Fine."

Then, silence. I couldn't tell you if we fell asleep like that, because honestly, I couldn't remember what happened.

As time moved on and our teenage years were still blooming, our daily turn of events became a seemingly endless routine. College, work, homework, sleep, parties. To some it was probably a blissful living, but it wasn't for me or Axel. Our lives began to not feel so special anymore, as if God's gift was nothing but a tattered teddy bear lying at the bottom of the toy box.

Being general teenagers we barely appreciated what we had. Axel would never clean, and neither would I. We'd order takeout almost every night. We'd have sex with our partners like it was nothing. We'd laze around, getting on with our well educated college courses as if it were slavery. We'd drink a lot. We'd swear a lot. Me and Axel would even fight a lot. We never meant anything by it; it was just something we had to do once in a while for some sort of adrenaline or excitement. Axel couldn't be bothered to get a job, said his course was a lot harder than mine. As if. We'd get enough money from college to pay our bills, but we still needed food. So I got a job in a music store.

Life was only okay from then on…


	2. Chapter 2

- My Routine -

Now at the present day, I am eighteen years old.

I no longer think life is about butterflies and perfect fairytales. I realise what reality is now. Perhaps I see it a little too gloomy than I should, but this was what it's like in my eyes. I'm constantly busy with college and work. I hardly ever see my foster parents anymore. I've completely forgotten about my early past. Everything is just utterly dull now. I even started smoking, to see if it would give my life the slightest edge of excitement. But of course, I should have listened to my teachers at school, because it didn't help. Now it's just dulled into a mere irritating habit.

I terribly miss being a child. Being so carefree and full of energy. There was never any pressure, never any work, never any alcohol or cigarettes to kill off my body, always fun everywhere I went, always confidence in myself, always protected, always happy. If I had known growing up was this hard, I would have used my time as a kid more wisely. But, such is life.

Axel is still by my side to remind me what our childhood was like. Before you tell me, I know, most teenagers usually wallow in self pity because of how much they miss their childhood. Being made to make your own money, pay for your own holidays, organise your _own_ damn life was pret-_ty_ damn lame compared to your parents doing it all for you. We are a lazy generation.

But it goes without saying that they were the best years of my life.

I hadn't seen Namine in a month. She was away on a trip to Paris as part of her Art course. She'd ring me telling me how much she missed me, and I'd tell her the same. What I really missed was the sex. I hadn't got any in a month. It was terrible. Don't go telling me it's the most unromantic, unthoughtful, unloving thing I could possibly say. You don't know shit about having a three year girlfriend, and if you do, I don't care, you still don't know shit. The butterflies seemed to disappear after the second year, and Namine was probably off having sex with some hot French guys anyway. Lucky bitch.

So I guess that's the first major change of my past to my present. My feelings for Namine had gone from 99 love, to around 15. Hell, _her_ feelings had probably gone down to 2.

Couples, they don't last forever, no matter what anyone might tell you. The spark is there in the beginning, wild and out of control, then it begins to calm down, and eventually it disappears. It's a natural fact of life. Nothing can last forever. Not even love itself.

I'm not saying I'm totally unhappy with Namine, it's just that our spark has packed its bags and run away in a space rocket to Mars. I doubt we'll ever see it again any time soon.

I had grown used to college life by now. Every day was the same endless banter of work I'd either already produced or work that was far too easy. It worked for me because of how easy it all was, and I was grateful I hadn't grown up as such a spoiled brat like my other class mates, who winged and moaned at how hard their life was because of one measly homework piece. I pitied them all. I hoped that one day their parents would abandon them and leave them for dead in an empty house.

… Oh how petty I had grown.

xxx

It was the end of a college Monday, and I was walking briskly through the crowded hallways toward the glorious light at the end of the tunnel; the exit. I avoided being shoved by the students that rushed and scurried toward those heavenly double doors. I wanted to go home as much as they did, but running really wasn't my style. The clumsy idiots seemed to have no idea that running wouldn't make anything easier. I guess they were just lost in the moment, which was more than could be said for myself. I was lost in a daze, staring at my white trainers as I walked slowly through the mass of teenagers. What was I thinking about? Well, sex, if you must know.

I felt a pair of hands thump onto my shoulders and the erotic images swirling through my head came to a direct emergency stop. I frowned at the sudden contact, wondering who the hell wanted to be smacked in the face right now. I turned my head to my side, and noticed a wild mane of brown hair.

I sighed.

"Yo, Roxas!" Sora smiled in and out of breaths, hunching over a little and slowing his pace to mine.

I frowned a weird face at him. "What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, I was running from Kairi. I think she's mad at me. I was trying to be helpful and tell her that her hair needed brushing, then she said something about not wanting advice from a hypocrite, then I tried to brush her hair with my fingers but ended up pulling a clump of hair out instead, which proved my point entirely! Then she got all angry and threw a chair at me… so I started running… and here I am."

I stared at him.

"Oh yeah, Axel told me to tell you to wait for him at the gates," he kindly added.

Fucking Axel. What did he want. "Thanks, Sora."

"No problem. Hey, I'll see you tomorrow," he said and started running with the other students. He turned his head and looked back at me, "bright and early for Biology!" with one last wink, he took off.

Sora was a nice guy, sometimes too nice, but man what a handful on a Monday.

I eventually walked out of the double doors and was met with a cool breeze. Suddenly I felt a lot more relaxed, feeling soft cold air gliding across the skin of my cheeks. I smiled, letting my eyes soften to the sensation. It wasn't every day this feeling had this much effect on me, this simple act of feeling fresh air on my face.

My smile soon lost its balance when my vision cleared ahead me. It was like a rough painting that was painted by a very untalented painter. The colours were dire, the composition out of range, the atmosphere as wrong as a fox being skewered by a tiny chicken. The image made me want to be sick, I wanted to throw a torch at it and watch the edges curl into a heap of black smoke and ash.

The image Axel and Demyx. The two were a messy couple.

They walked toward me, hand in hand, not even noticing me but just looking at each other while they spoke. I clenched my fist. For years I'd tried to get used to Demyx, tried so painfully hard, but in the end I decided that it was physically impossible.

"Roxas."

I jumped and yelped a little at the sudden sound to my left. I turned my head in shock to see Zexion stood next to me, facing toward the ugly couple in front of us with an unreadable expression.

I exhaled, trying to catch my breath. "Zex, you scared the shit out of me."

He didn't say anything back, not to my surprise. His hands were stuffed into his pockets and his back a little slumped over. It was typical Zexion really, the only person in our group that I'd never seen a smile from.

"Life's too short to keep staring at the object of your desire but never having the courage to grab it."

"That's pretty positive coming from you," I said back.

"Not positive, just the truth."

I looked at his eyes, and watched as they stared straight toward Axel and Demyx. If Zexion didn't look so depressed all the time, I would have recognised a slight hint of sadness in those grey orbs.

Before I had time to answer him, the two lovebirds had walked over to us. Axel was grinning like a Cheshire cat, and Demyx just had that smug look on his face as normal. One day I'd wipe it right off.

"Zexxy, fancy seeing you here. I thought you went home ages ago," Demyx said, giving him an annoyingly warm smile.

Zexion stared at Demyx, not answering for a few seconds but just glaring at him. I thought he was going to ignore him at first, which would have made my entire day, but sadly, he didn't.

"I decided to stick around. But, I'm leaving now," he said and turned away, closing his eyes as he did so. "I'll see you tomorrow, Roxas."

I watched him turn his back, wondering if he was okay. It was never a good idea to worry about Zexion, because you'd end up never being able to stop. But you could wonder, just wonder what went on in that little head of his.

"Alright, you just keep on smiling Zexion!" Axel waved him off.

Zexion gave a small wave of his hand then disappeared into the crowd of students.

"So err, Roxy, you going to work now?"

I turned to Axel, giving him a glare that hopefully wasn't too obvious. "Yes, yes I am Axel. To pay for our flat and our food."

"It was nice of Demyx to get you that job…"

"Shame he couldn't get you one aswell."

"Ahh there was only one spot left," Demyx butted in. I had to grit my teeth hard at the sudden sound of his presence.

Silence followed after us, and I just kept glaring at the floor. Silence was a funny thing around people who never seemed to stop talking. Even funnier when they tried to avoid it at all costs when it couldn't be helped. Demyx was one of those stupid people. He noticed one of his friends and walked away from us and the silence, leaving me with my red headed best friend.

Axel sighed at me with a smile for no particular reason when Demyx left us. "I'll be home when you get back, I'll make us some dinner, the good stuff," Axel kept his smile.

I couldn't help but appreciate that offer by smiling back and nodding. It would be nice to come home to some warm dinner after work. Even if Axel's cooking was frightful.

"I'll see you when you get back then, sugar," he winked and ran a soft hand through my messy hair.

I shunted my head away with a smirk, catching Axel's gaze with my own for a brief second.

"Have fun Roxy."

"Bye Axel."

I was walking home from work in my work uniform. Black trousers and a white shirt. My hands were stuffed in my pockets and a cigarette hung loosely in my lips, the smoke trailing up towards the sky slowly. I was so bored. I hadn't done anything exciting at all recently. Sure I'd been to a couple of parties but they weren't anything special. It was hard to keep my hands off of the girls when Namine wasn't there to distract me, especially as it'd been a while _month_ since I'd had to reduce to wanking off in my bedroom to cheap porn.

My phone rang and vibrated from inside my pocket and I picked it out, flipping it open and putting it to my ear, not bothering to see who it was. I took the cigarette out of my mouth with the edges of my fingers. "Yeah?"

"Alright Roxy?"

I smiled at Axel's voice. "Where are you?"

"I'm at home, so get your sweet ass here soon, yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm hurrying." I said, slowly walking down the pavement.

"You sound tired?"

"Because I've just been working, Axel dearest. Some of us put up with it you know."

"Mmm the best people do."

"What are you up to?"

"Sat here wanking over a picture of Namine."

For a second, for a tiny second I was actually fooled. "Fuck you."

A little snort. "I feel so bad for you. How long has it been? Two weeks?"

"A month," I sighed.

"You know I'm always here if you're desperate."

I hung up at the gesture and sighed, shoving the phone back into my pocket. It was hardly funny, the way Axel always teased me like that. Because knowing myself, I probably would if I were that desperate. And getting off with another guy is hardly as bad as getting off with another girl on Namine's part. Is it?

I frowned. As if I'd ever bed my best friend anyway.

"Hey, Roxas!"

I put the cigarette back in my mouth and slowly turned my head around to see who it was. When I saw the long dark brown hair and the low cut top, I cursed to myself. Tifa Lockheart, the biggest breasts in town. What a kick in the nuts.

I turned my head forward again as Tifa began running to catch up to me. Not wanting to see anything bouncing up and down, I kept my head forward.

"Hiya Roxas," she smiled, walking along side me.

I kept one hand in my pocket and the other handling the cigarette, hoping they wouldn't wonder off anywhere.

"What's up, Tifa?"

"Um, I was just wondering how well you're doing on the Biology coursework? I've been really stuck for days now and just wondered if you're stuck aswell."

I looked at her confused. "I've finished it."

"Oh!" Tifa blushed, looking a little embarrassed. "Could you explain Part B a little for me, if it's not too much trouble."

I couldn't even remember what the coursework was about, let alone Part B. "Um, you reckon I could do this sometime else? Maybe I could come to yours tomorrow?"

"Oh? Like study at mine? Yeah that's sounds like a good solution."

I looked weirdly at her. She sure was naïve. I could use that to my advantage… NO! NO ROXAS. BAD. NAMINE. GIRLFRIEND. ONLY GIRL YOU'RE ALLOWED TO THINK OF. ONLY GIRL YOU CAN TOUCH.

"Err actually come to think of it, I'm busy tomorrow night, sorry about that. I could email you my coursework if you like, and you can just shove it into your own words or something." I rushed my words, trying to cancel the 'study date' before she could run off.

Wow what an asshole.

Tifa looked at me then nodded slowly, eyes drooping in reject.

"Sorry, Tifa…"

"It's okay. See you tomorrow." She quickly walked away the opposite direction and I frowned at myself, throwing the cigarette to the floor and stomping on it with my white trainers.

I needed to keep my head clear. Those breasts were hypnotising me, I swear.

000000

I opened the door to mine and Axel'sflat, relieved to be home at last. Once I shut the door I took off my trainers and padded across the carpeted hallway into the living room to the left. I loved the feeling of walking into the warmth of the central heating in our place. It felt like home. It _was_ home.

Once the colour of wild spiky red hair caught the corner of my eye, I grinned, feeling at home even more. Axel was sat by the desk, resting his feet on top of it as he chewed a pen and scanned a book in his hand. His hair was tied back, and his shirt was slightly left open, exposing his shimmering torso. His face was tense as he read the book named 'The Art of Cooking'.

I smiled and walked up to him, smelling his cologne a mile away. "Still studying for that exam?" I asked, cutting the silence.

He trailed his eyes up from his book and saw me across from it, eyeing me closely. He smiled, then looked back to the book. "Yeah. The professor's got us working to the bone, haven't had time to study for it."

I sighed, plonking myself onto the desk and looking away from him. "I was hoping you were up for doing something fun."

"Not today, Roxy."

"Then why'd you tell me to hurry?"

"I didn't."

"What?"

"I only told you to get your sweet ass here. Never told you to hurry."

"Well why did you want me?"

"Because I missed you, baby."

I grimaced at the word. "Only my mother can call me that."

Axel snickered. "Your mother's a bitch, Roxas."

I got off of the desk and eyed my surroundings. I was bored. And he was boring. Not a good combination at all. I moved the centre of the small living room, pulling my arms in front of me in a stretch.

"Me and Demyx are going out tomorrow night," Axel swooned, "candle lit dinner apparently. Said he's got a big surprise for me." Axel carefully eyed me like a cunning cat over the book as he spoke.

"Oh," was all I said when I stretched my arms up high out of boredom. Like I cared about any of that. I still felt bitter about the two. "Anything in the fridge?" I asked as I strode closer to the kitchen door, and when I got no answer I decided to turn around at his silence.

When I did turn around, I was suddenly looking face first into Axel's green cat like eyes, his face a mere few inches from mine, and I almost screamed like a girl.

"Shit me Axel! Would you not do that?!" I said, bracing my heart as it pounded in shock. Axel smirked and stood there, inches from myself near the kitchen door. His reflexes and his sneaky techniques always nearly gave me a heart attack. It pissed me off.

He backed his head away from mine, looking quite satisfied with himself. "Only joking," he started, then looked to the floor. "Actually, I don't think Demyx would ever do anything like that for me." He pouted like a baby, and I just stared at him stupidly, not caring at all.

I leaned against the frame of the door. My heart rate was starting to slow down now, thank fuck.

Axel looked back, his grin appearing again. "You and I are going out tonight."

"Are we now?"

"There's a party up north and-"

"No way. I have a lecture tomorrow morning."

"Oh come on Roxas! When has that ever stopped you?"

"No, Axel. Incase you're forgetting, tomorrow's actually quite an important day for me."

Axel raised an eyebrow. "Refresh my memory."

I looked down at the ground, feeling a little uneasy. In all honesty, I hadn't actually told Axel what I would be doing tomorrow. I kind of figured he'd just dismiss what I said, not wanting to look like a forgettable fool.

I didn't want to go into it with Axel, because I knew he would just ask me hundreds of questions that I knew I wouldn't have the answer to. I didn't want to concern him either.

The truth was, I was seeing someone tomorrow. My social worker. I hadn't seen her in about three years, because I'd never needed to. She'd realised I was perfectly stable with my life and that I no longer needed her guidance. But the other week, she suddenly gave me a call, telling me she had something very important to tell me and that we should meet up. I wondered what the hell it could be about, then I realised that there was only ever one thing a social worker was there for.

Social workers were only there because of that one time in your life that exploded in your face, causing your brain to jumble and make you 'mentally unstable'. The event that caused pain, madness or maybe even sickened joy. That event in my life, the event that should have caused everything in my mind to utterly implode with madness, was the time when I was three years old. When my parents had up and left me for good. Luckily, because I was so young, it never effected me as much as it should have. But the social worker would still be lurking.

So, my social worker, only there constantly to remind me that my parents never loved me, obviously had something to say about my parents. But what on earth could it be about, I really didn't know. Did I even care? Well, I cared enough to accept her invitation.

"Uh, earth to Roxas?"

I shook my head. "Just meeting someone."

"Someone important? Who?"

"The Queen. Now buggar off and make me some dinner, like you promised."

"Yeah… about that…"

I rolled my eyes, not at all surprised that he hadn't really bothered. "Nevermind, I'm gonna study. Have fun tonight." I made my move toward the hallway and to my room.

"Pfft. As if I'm gonna go on my own. The hounds will be crawling all over me."

xxx

Later that evening, I was alone in the flat. Axel had indeed gone out, not to the party, but something else. He'd said he had something to take care of and I didn't ask questions. I just left himself to himself. I knew sometimes we all needed our personal space.

As I laid upon the couch in our heated living room, I had a vision. My eyes bored into the speckled ceiling and my hands rested underneath my head.

I had a vision that, maybe, this was it for my life. Maybe this was as far as my accomplishments could go. I had a home, a girlfriend, a job, and an education. What more could I personally want? Did I want a family? A family with Namine? A child with blonde hair and blue eyes? A boy and then a girl? I could be the father that mine never was, and Namine the perfect caring mother.

It was a bizarre image, me as Papa Roxas. So bizarre, I don't think I'd ever think it again. I didn't want kids. Not yet anyway.

I sighed, moving my arms down. My eyes caught the wooden bracelet that made a small sound as folded my arms to my chest. Namine had bought it for me for Christmas last year, she said I suited things like that.

I smiled. I did miss Namine. I missed her a lot.

I looked at the clock and it was 10pm. Maybe I could call her? I didn't know what the time difference between France and England was, but I didn't care, it couldn't have been more than an hour.

I picked up the house phone and dialled her mobile number, listening to the dial tone as it rung and rung. I hoped she would pick up, because who knew when else I would have this sudden urge to ring her. After a few delayed rings, she finally picked up.

"Uh, hello?"

"Hey baby," I purred.

"Um Axel?"

I frowned. "It's me, you idiot," I said, losing my cool.

"Oh Roxas! God, sorry." She sounded surprised. "Gosh, what a surprise!"

"Yeah… Sorry I haven't given you a call recently, I've been real busy with stuff. But I'm here now."

"Uh," she hesitated, "thanks sweety, it's real nice to hear your voice again."

I smiled. "How's Paris?"

"It's beautiful here, Roxas. Honestly, I wish I didn't have to leave."

"Quite good then? Knowing you, I would've thought you'd be bored by now."

"No… this place… it's so different. I wish you were here to experience it."

"I'm glad you're having fun. I know I'm not."

"Only a month, Roxas," she spoke, "then I can show you what we've both been missing."

I had an idea all of a sudden. "What're you up to?"

She breathed. "Just in my hotel, relaxing in my bed, how about you?"

"Mm just at home, relaxing on my couch."

I heard her shuffle around in the bed sheets and the sound made me wish I was there with her, shuffling those sheets in a different manner. "Where's Axel?"

"He's out, somewhere. Are you alone?"

I could hear the grin in her voice. "Yeah, yeah I am."

A smug smile spread across my lips. If I was going to get nothing from my girlfriend for another month, the least she could offer was a little phone sex. "Are you wearing that cute little bed outfit I bought you last Christmas?"

"I was, but I'm afraid it's starting to slip off."

I breathed heavily, mental images of Namine slowly undressing running across my mind.

"Yeah," she purred, "it's all off now. And it's so hot in here, baby."

I closed my eyes, my hands lowering their selves to my lap as the phone rested on my shoulder.

"Hey, baby, what do you want me to do with myself?"

When she started to softly moan against the speaker, my fingers found my zipper. "I want you to run those fingers-"

Then, life shot an arrow right through my fucking groin. The door to the flat opened loudly and I scrambled from my position, holding the phone upright and just about looking sane as Axel walked into the living room, holding a plastic bag of god knows what.

He eyed me, noticing how flustered I looked, then looked downwards. Of course, of course fucking of course the bulge in my pants was highly visible.

His eyebrows rose. "_Someone's_ happy to see me."

I frowned, still holding the phone to my ear as the moans coming from the other end were so loud Axel could probably hear them.

Axel snickered. "Oh. I guess that's for you." Then he walked away into the kitchen. "Tell Namine I said hey!"

"Bastard."


	3. Chapter 3

_Eep this one's a short chapter, but I thought I'd throw it in just incase the next one's gonna take a while. I'll try my best not to let it, alrighty chickens?_

_I'll give a shout out to my reviewers so far, who convinced it was worth putting on here after all bahaha…_

_**renAku, 13loves8loves9loves6, Obsessive-Compulsive-KSARA, AkuRoku.Dragon, Silver Tears 11 thankyou!**_

xxx

The next day, went as smooth as silk. Apparently the lecture I thought I had, in the early hours of the morning, had been cancelled because poor Professor Vexen had blown up one of his experiments again, getting himself rushed to hospital. That was Chemistry blown out the window. All I had left of this Tuesday was a Biology lesson and then I was as free as a bird, until tomorrow of course.

I made my way into the science block through the college corridors, ignoring the fight that was taking place between Seifer and Hayner. Those two, they were always looking for attention. Always creating the biggest crowd they could muster just so every pair of those moronic eyes were on them. I didn't have time in my life for that crap. This was college, not primary school.

I headed toward the science block, and then to my biology class room. Noticing I was a little early by the lack of students that were already seated, I paused a little in the doorway. This wasn't like _me_.

"Good to see you, Roxas. Take a seat."

I looked toward my teacher, Mr. Leonhart, as he rubbed the black board of its chalky mess. "Morning Sir," I mumbled.

I walked toward to the back of the class, noticing Zexion sat there quietly reading a book.

Matchmaking For Dummies?

"Uhh, hey Zexion," I greeted, still eyeing the book stupidly.

He looked up, peering over the small glasses resting on his nose. "Hello, Roxas. Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Matchmaking For Dummies?"

He turned the book, eyeing the front cover and nodding.

"Since when did you become a matchmaker?"

"Since I noticed the terrible love triangle going on between our group of friends."

I was getting a headache. Suddenly Zexion cared all about that stuff? Hell, I did notice the love triangle between Zexion, Demyx and Axel years ago, but it never bothered him then. And wait, he'd only _just_ noticed?

The way I saw it, in my own eyes, in my clueless little heart. Axel and Zexion both wanted Demyx. For the life of me I could never understand why, but that was how it was. Zexion never held a grudge on Axel, because that was plain Zexion. The only reason I knew about Zexion's hidden love for Demyx was because, apparently, I was the only person Zexion trusted. And so he told me, and this was years ago. I would have thought he'd gotten over it by now.

"You know, Zexion, that triangle's been around for quite some time…"

"Ah, but it's a lot more complicated now, isn't it? Ever since you got involved."

"Me?" I squealed, so hard that my voice almost cracked.

Before the conversation could carry on, Sora charged through the door greeting everyone in the class suddenly and loudly. Mr. Leonhart had to bite his tongue when the chalk in his fingertips snapped in two.

Sora skipped toward us, biology book in hand, and plonked his little bottom onto a stool in front of myself and Zexion. "Morning early birds!"

"Why, the hell, are you here so early?"

"Because today's the day Roxas!"

"Today's _the_ _what_ day?"

His smile calmed down a little, so much it almost disappeared, but brave little Sora wouldn't dare let it slip away. "My parents are coming home."

Zexion and myself, we stared at him. Stared because we didn't know what else to do or say. We didn't stare at him because we were confused, we were far from confused. We knew exactly why Sora was so happy, yet looking so painfully nervous at the same time.

Sora was a good kid. He was probably the happiest person on the planet. But there were two sides to every coin. With happiness, came reason. With reason, came a choice. Sora had flipped his coin and _choose_ happiness, it wasn't there naturally.

I looked at Sora, and sometimes saw him as myself in a different life if some events hadn't happened. This one being my parents. My parents hated me, hated me so much they left me. But what if they hadn't left me? Then I'd be Sora.

Sora's parents hated him too, but they never left him. No, they had the courage to stick by the creation they'd made. They weren't happy with it. They'd hit him, curse him, treat him like they wished he'd never been born. But all the way, when the vibrations in Sora's head flipped the coin time and time again, it would always land on happiness. He was grateful he had parents, grateful that someone was there to look after him, and decided he should never think otherwise.

Ever since he met me and learned how I'd never really known or been cared for by my parents; that decision had been set in stone. I almost felt like an asshole for it. _Another_ thing my parents had made difficult for me: making others feel guilty or sorry for me, causing them to make surreal decisions just like Sora had done.

He knew other people didn't approve of his choice to stay content with how he was being treated. He knew it all too well. But Sora's warped little mind was stuck in the hopes that one day, just one day, his parents would love him.

Would I seriously be that person if that one turn of event in my past didn't happen? If my parents stayed with me, I wouldn't even know Sora, because I wouldn't even know Axel. Would Sora be in my shoes if I were in his?

The class started to fill with students, and after a few minutes, Mr. Leonhart started the lesson.

The lesson was painfully quiet and concentrated for that whole one hour and a half. Even Sora was quiet, but I didn't blame him for that.

It was just another lesson, just another day, just another event that coursed its way through my life stream.

To all students who had been at college for a while, it was only a routine. A routine you had to undergo if you wanted to achieve any sort of good future career. Most of us didn't even know what we wanted to be when we were older, or what kind of things to study or learn about during college, all we knew was that we _had_ to be there. Parents, gardians, school teachers, even friends warned you how messed up life could be in the future if you skipped college then tried to make something of yourself in your middles ages. You'd only succeed if you were extremely talented, or extremely lucky… and we all know what any teenager's confidence is like to actually accept that offer. Around 2 would take that road, and probably only 0.09 would be successful. Take Richard Branson for example, he never worked a day of his life in college, yet he's one of the richest men in the world. Luck? Or Talent? Probably both.

Me, I stuck to the other 98 and worked my way through college. I know it will get me somewhere one day.

So my lame-ass Tuesday at college had come to close, and now, it was time for the apparent big news.

I agreed to meet up with my social worker, Yuffie, at a small café in town. It was one of my favourite cafes, so it should help ease my nerves from any possible unwanted news I may hear. I sighed to myself. I was still wondering what kind of news it could be. Good or bad? A silly little check up? Or news of my parents? I didn't know whether to be nervous or not, but my instinct was shaking my hands a little as I walked.

I walked inside with the door giving me a welcoming ring. The cosy little café was nicely quiet and relaxed. Another helping hand for me. I looked around a little, and noticed to my left Yuffie sat down at a table looking through a desert menu. Her face looked so excited as her big eyes roamed toward the bottom of the menu. I grinned a little. That was the section for the chocolate sweets. I'd been here far too many times.

When I walked closer and took in the familiar image of Yuffie, there was no real surprise that she looked exactly like she did three years ago. Her hair was still short and black with a subtle bandana tied like an alice-band around her head. Her little outfit, a tight black cotton t-shirt with dark grey pants that cut off at the knee. It was typical Yuffie, the woman who refused to look like a patronising nagger but instead portrayed herself as someone the kids could get along with.

"Roxas! Long time no see kiddo."

"I'm hardly a kid anym-"

"Which do you recommend? Chocolate sundae? Or strawberry cheese cake?"

I paused to look at her, and she looked right back. I frowned. "Chocolate sundae," I mumbled and took a seat opposite her.

"Great!"

With a flip of a shut menu and a slight scrapping of a tucked in chair, her expression changed from goofy to completely normal. It took me a while to notice but she was staring at me, right at me, almost through me.

"How've you been, Roxas?"

That question was always the first. Then the answer would bring on another question, then another answer, leading onto even more questions, leading to even more answers, leading to a never ending series of questions and answers that would boil toward the very last question. Was I really okay?

I shrugged. "Fine."

"I heard you've started college now. Any fun?"

"It's fine."

"The work okay?"

"Yep, fine."

"So life's pretty much fine?"

"Fine just like it was the last time I saw you, Yuffie. So why don't we skip the prologue and you tell me what's going on?"

A small silence hung over the both of us after my little short tempered burst. I wasn't angry with her, I was just frustrated. I wanted to know what was going on, and here she was trying to give me another session of 'and how does that make you feel?' conversations. I was eighteen years old now for Christ's sake, I hardly needed a social worker anymore.

Yuffie starred at me, and her eyes looked a little sad, but still a tiny little smile crept along her face. "I forgot what time could do to people. I guess you're not little Roxy that used to tell me stories of what happened at school and what kind of paintings you liked to make at home."

I looked away. "Three years can do a lot."

"That's why I'm intrigued." A pause. "Roxas, I'll admit, I didn't come here today to be your social worker, just as an old friend, if you will."

I looked from to floor to her dark eyes. "You're not here for another session?"

Yuffie scoffed. "Roxas, you're what, eighteen? Ninteen…?"

"Eighteen."

"Which means you're hardly in need of any sessions. You can sort it all out on your own buddy."

I smiled, feeling the warmth of the past creep around the atmosphere. She'd never been totally polite, and I always appreciated it for some reason.

"I only asked those questions because I was curious. If you met an old friend you hadn't seen in three years surely you'd want to ask questions as well?"

I pouted, not wanting to answer, because she was right and she knew it.

She leant back in her chair and folded her skinny arms. "So grow up and act your age. I wouldn't give you social care anymore even if you wanted me to."

"So you called because you miss me?"

Her eyes shifted toward the table. "Not exactly."

"See, I knew there was a catch."

She looked a little worried and she even began fidgeting with her nails. This always worried me. Years ago, whenever she fidgeted, there was always awkward news to come. Something like, 'I couldn't get you a home in a different town, so you'll have to stay put' or 'Axel's in police custody again because he burnt someone's garage down'. I took a breather. It's what I always did before bad news.

Before she could even start talking again, the waitress had come to our table with a bright smile and asked what we wanted to order.

"Erm, chocolate sundae please!" Yuffie smiled.

"I'll just have some water," I said.

"Certainly!"

The waitress skipped away, and my eyes returned to Yuffie, still wanting answers.

"Okay. I was given some weird news at the office a couple of days ago. I received a phone call from a woman asking about you. I thought to myself 'Roxas? Wow it's been a while since I've seen him!' So I told her that I used to be your social worker, and that's the only information I could give her for the moment. Then she… she asked me if you were alive and well."

I frowned, getting a horrible feeling in the pits of my stomach.

"It was your mother, Roxas."

I didn't quite know what to feel, but I found myself curling my fists up tight and my brows lowered so hard I almost couldn't see. Alive and well? What fucking nerve. My own mother, my flesh and blood asking if I was even _alive_? The bitch should already know the answer to that. To her I'd died a long, long time ago.

Yuffie could obviously see the anger in my expression, so she tried to soften her voice a little, like good social workers did when they'd upset their patients. "Roxas, she's going to be in town next week, because I wanted to meet her, to talk to her."

"You fucking WHAT?!" I yelled, causing the other people in the café to turn and stare at us both, but I clearly ignored them, glaring at Yuffie. "You had no right, Yuffie! _No right!_"

She couldn't react to me, couldn't answer back or rather shout back, because she knew she did wrong in inviting my mother to my home town. She probably knew I would react like this, and she probably knew it was best to do this in person.

"That's why I wanted to tell you before she arrived, Roxas. I didn't want to tell her anything before you knew."

"You were planning on _telling_ her things?! Like where I live? What I look like?"

"Roxas don't be stupid, I would never do that!"

"Then why Yuffie?! What possible reason would you want to meet up with my mother for?"

"I was going to get answers out of _her_. Not the other way round."

I was fuming. I was so angry. I didn't even want to know the answers my mother would give. Didn't even want to imagine.

Before I completely lost my temper and ended up hurling the quaint little café table across the room, I got up and I left. I suppose you may call it running away from the truth. But I'm sure that if you were me, you'd do the exact same thing. I wanted to up and leave town for a week while my mother was around, change my number so Yuffie couldn't call me. Luckily, although hopefully, she didn't have records of where I was living now. And if she did, I would make Axel pretend he didn't know me anymore. I didn't want anything to do with the whole situation. I just wanted to utterly vanish.

Axel.

He was the only person I wanted to see right now. I was nearly, only by an inch, in tears as I steadily walked down the street towards my home. I refused to cry. I'd shed enough tears in my life for that woman I used to call 'mama'. I had a new life now, a life my mother nor Yuffie should be apart of. I had a life with Axel now, a life at college, a life with Namine, with my friends, and no one else.

I'm sure no one would mind or misunderstand if I left town for a week. They'd comprehend, surely they would.


	4. Chapter 4 Gentle Impulsion

_I hope this chapter doesn't confuse you too much. Some of it is very metaphorical, just so you know heh._

xxx

Home was always where the heart was, and when I sat in my room, my red-headed best friend beside me on the bed, I felt reassurance. But still, no matter how deep you were inside your own sanctuary, you could never escape the thoughts and realizations of what was really going on inside your head. My head was rather jumbled, jumbled so much I couldn't speak a word after I'd told Axel exactly what Yuffie had told me.

Axel sat there, his hands in his lap, just listening to my breathing after I'd spoken. I suppose he either didn't know what to say or he was simply as angry as I was. "Why didn't you tell me?" Was all he could mutter.

"I didn't want you asking questions."

"Yet here you are telling me anyway."

"I think I realised, after what Yuffie had gone and done, that you are the only person I can trust." I didn't know where that had come from, but I felt like I wanted him to know. After the realisations of Namine being the most likely unfaithful girlfriend ever, and now my ex-social worker going behind my back, it hit me that he really was the only reliable person dear to me.

He looked at me, a little grin on his features. "Even though I lie, steal, cheat, burn houses down and all that lark?"

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore those facts. "I trust you with everything I have."

He stared at me silently for a while, not with a look of surprise, happiness or gratitude, but with a look of worry. The kind of worry where you knew someone was in for it, but you couldn't think of anything to do but just… look worried. Instead of prying over it, he tried to change the conversation. "So what are you going to do next week?"

"Leave town, until I know she's gone."

"Where are you gonna go?"

"Somewhere, I'll find a hotel."

"With what money?"

"With the money I earn, Axel."

"You can't afford a hotel. What about the rent?"

"I'll stay in a crappy B&B if that's what it takes."

"You can't be serious…"

"Axel, I don't want to be here!"

"You're running away."

"Because it's my _mother_!"

"She'll never find you!"

"I don't trust anyone, Axel! Someone will tell her where I am, someone will give away clues, she'll find me!"

"You're speaking as if she's a murderer on the hunt!"

"She left me for dead, that's practically murder!"

I didn't even realise that my eyes had welled up and I was crying like a moron. I suppose it took Axel a little time to realise as well, because he'd stopped shouting at me, and instead he was just looking at me with surprised eyes.

I hated it. I hated crying. Most people were relieved by it, felt like they should let it all out until they were satisfied, but to me it was just another reminder of a truth I tried to hide nearly my entire life; the reality that what my parents had done to me all those years ago left a scar bigger than anyone, even myself, would think.

My breathing was getting rough, and Axel couldn't think of anything to do but just stare at me like a dear in the headlights. Okay, so he wasn't used to seeing me cry like this, but he didn't have to gawk.

I felt so betrayed. Like everyone around me was out to get me, wanting to see me suffer because of something I'd done wrong. What had I done wrong? I hadn't done anything to anyone. I was the victim here! Namine was off screwing other guys in Paris, I knew it, she was bored of me. Yuffie had betrayed me, knew that I never wanted to hear or see anything relating to my parents… yet going ahead and probably inviting her round for tea and fucking biscuits. My friends were talking behind my back, Zexion saying something like I was involved in a love triangle, what was that? Some rumour must be going around, something bad. What had I done? Why is the world closing in on me? Why am I being thrown into an endless pit of despair?

Axel still watched as my hands shook, tears silently rolling quickly down my cheeks. "Roxas…"

"Axel, I'm a good guy aren't I?"

Axel paused, as a little confused for a second, but soon went with the flow. "Yeah, best guy I know."

I looked at him, getting the hint of sarcasm in that quick remark. "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

I tensed, my brows furrowing. "Stop lying. Tell me the truth."

Axel frowned. "Roxas, why would I lie about that? You _know_ you're my most favourite person in the world."

Tears were flooding out of my eyes, my expression completely insulted as I looked at him. The sarcasm was still there. He didn't mean what he was saying. He just wanted to shut me up. He hated me. "You fucker."

Before I knew what I was doing, I lashed out and my arm flew out of nowhere. I didn't even recall commanding it to. My emotions had simply taken complete control of my body. It felt like my mind was a mess and it was causing my physical actions to connect with my emotions, maybe because my emotions weren't reaching out far enough, like no one could hear them. I barely knew what was going on.

My hand never made contact with his face though, because his reflexes caught my wrist in a tight grip, being held just inches from his cheek. Maybe my emotions weren't being as strong as I thought, and I was slightly relieved by that.

"Roxas, calm the fuck down." His tone was harsh, serious, and in the mist of it, quite scared.

I tried to wriggle my arm out of his grip, but he wouldn't let go.

"You promised me you'd never let it get this far, you're going nuts, and you're in a bad state of paranoia. Over what? The woman you promised me and yourself you never wanted anything to do with. Your actions are clearly proving you failed at that, huh?"

"Let me go," I said blankly.

"I don't want a black eye tomorrow Roxas."

"Let me go and you won't get one."

He had to think about it, but eventually he did let go.

I thought I'd calmed down a little, felt like I was relaxing again. Axel would never betray me, and if he did, why would he start now? I only trusted Axel. Right there and then. I couldn't believe my paranoia had got the best of me and nearly made me turn against my best friend. What was wrong with me? Had this whole situation really got to me this much?

I clutched at my golden hair in frustration, scrunching my face and took a deep breath, then exhaled. I felt so stupid. "I'm sorry."

Axel sighed, unsure of what was going on. "I won't tell anyone about this. I'm gonna sort this out for you myself. Okay?"

I stared at the floor then nodded my head a little, still holding my hair tight.

A sound of a scoff came from his direction, and I looked up at him. "You look like a crazy person, Roxas."

I moved my hands from my head, and straightened myself slowly. "I'm not crazy."

"That's what they all say."

I smiled a little and said, despite myself, "Well… maybe I am. I just tried to hit you."

He looked at me, and I looked at him. For a moment it felt weird, us looking at each other like that. Him trying to read me, and me just simply staring for the sake of it. My eyes traced over his hair line, his eyebrows, nose, cheeks, lips…

"You know you could hit me all you wanted, if it made you feel better."

My eyes travelled back up, to his green eyes.

"But we both know you couldn't land a punch if your life depended on it."

A journey back to his cheeks, imagining bruises of purple and blue. Then to his strong jaw line, seeing it completely out of place and broken. "I could do a lot of damage if my mind was put to it," I said.

His nostrils flared a little, and my eyes flew toward his little nose. Then his ears pricked, and my eyes gazed over the small piercing on his lobe. Just a silver stud. Then my bizarre mind imagined a bleeding nose and ripped flesh from his ear.

My own mouth opened a little, and Axel noticed how wide my eyes were as they scanned over the features of his face. Something was crossing his mind as he noticed the way I was staring at him, something that struck him as somewhat surprised. As soon as _his_ eyes had widened a little, I noticed he was off guard, and before I let my chances go, I leapt, as quickly as I could, on top of him.

What drove me to do it was just instant reaction of seeing Axel's concentration not all there, for the briefest moment. Axel was never off guard, always prepared for almost anything. So I saw my chance and I took it.

I sprung, his body falling down backwards on the mattress with a gracious bounce, and I grinned, not ever taking my eyes off of his facial expression. Eyes went closed for a second, then open in sudden surprise, then thin and frowned when one of my own hands had pinned both his wrists above his head.

"See, once your guard is down I can do whatever the hell I want."

Axel sneered and his eyebrows furrowed, making his bright green eyes look wild and dangerous. His fists tightened together above his head, and his mouth was a little angered.

I raised my free hand slowly, creating a hard fist. As it rose, I looked at him. "Still don't think I could?"

He looked at my fist, dearly noting how tense it was. "Try it."

My teeth clenched in irritation and I straddled his hips hard so he couldn't make any sudden movements. I wanted to do something for him doubting me, wanted to prove him wrong or outsmart him. I'd always taught myself to prove others wrong when it was needed. I _needed_ to show Axel I wasn't as weak and pathetic as he thought, especially after that little crying ordeal that happened a few moments ago. This was the only way I could do it.

His composed eyes never shook or became unbalanced. They'd always remain focused on my jittery ones. It didn't help. It made me loose my concentration. Every time I looked right _into_ his sharp green eyes, I felt like I was being swallowed alive, or like I was caught in a bear trap. It _was_ painful to look directly into Axel's eyes sometimes, especially when they were as sharp and unsafe as they were at that moment.

I looked deeper, and a little glint seemed to appear, a glint I seemed to remember from years ago when we were kids. When we made our make-shift tents in the middle of our bedroom at home, we were fifteen, not that young at all.

_Whenever I paid enough attention, I would notice this little glint in his eye when the light hit them in just the right place. What it was I never understood, and I would never question it again._

I was uneasy now. My hand wavered in the air a little and my brows weren't as tight as they were a second ago. I still looked though. I wanted to keep my eyes on his face, to look for any sign that he might try something to stop me or even counterattack. But his face stayed the same, waiting for it.

That glint. It was a metaphor. Such an ironic metaphor at this moment. I understood it now. When myself and Axel were in our little haven under those covers, our minds were free and we needn't worry about anything. Whenever I did notice that glint in his eyes, my mind wasn't fogged enough with worries or doubts to be blinded by it. That glint… it told me I never needed to prove anything to him, not to Axel, not anything at all.

He hadn't seen it yet, hadn't seen that I'd lost total control. He couldn't feel that my muscles had turned to goo. He couldn't see any of it because I stayed completely still. Everything inside had died, yet my shell remained the same. A mask of pure determination plastered across my face.

Yet again I had underestimated him. I let my guard down by thinking too much, and his body had somehow thrust upwards, turned sideways with mine, and now my back was against the wall, his hips now straddling my hips. His face was so amused, like he was toying with his favourite puppet, yet his eyes were so… I didn't understand. Was it malice?

Although the movement was too quick, I still tried. My fist that had been in the air collided with his face, not in a state of will-power, but in a state of instant shock. Because of that, he only grinned when his head snapped to the side from the harsh contact. I was stunned at myself for a minute, not thinking I was actually going to hit him. I felt an overpowering sense of control when I heard the sound of my knuckles against his jaw, and it drove me on.

I attempted to lunge forward to give me some room for another hit, but he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me backwards hard against the wall. I let out a pathetic whimper when my back painfully hit the plaster covered brick, and suddenly that act of cowardice drove me onto my next move. A head-butt to his forehead.

The only effect it caused was a surprised yelp, and a pair of hands tightening on my scrawny shoulders. I snarled at how my attempts weren't doing much at all, only proving all the more how I could never hurt Axel.

I looked at his face, and he inched his glare forward. I could feel hot, angered, excited breath on my lips, until he and I both noticed something. Small, but still noticeable, a drop of crimson red formed on the side of his lip.

I panicked. "Shit…" I wasn't sure but maybe it was fear of what would happen next. Maybe it was it regret of what I had done. Maybe it was both.

I didn't even have time to mull it over in my head, because before I knew it, I had been thrown sideways and laid on my back with a harsh shove. Axel towered above me. When I got my chances to look up, I almost saw red in his eyes, like the fire he always tried to tame had now tamed him. His breathing was quick, just as quick as mine was.

Axel was a predator. He never liked losing and he'd never give up on whatever it was he was trying to do or prove. That glint in Axel's eyes had been shot to hell. We were both trying to prove something to each other now. We were trying so damn hard. What Axel was trying to prove I still didn't understand… but because of how low and weak I felt right now, I couldn't just let it slip. It wasn't me.

"Was it Namine that drove you to do this?" He suddenly asked, his face painfully close to mine.

Namine? What the hell did she have to do with this?

"To go this far?" His hands were slowly rubbing up my thigh, and I had to swallow. I should have felt disgusted, should've smacked his daring hands away, but I didn't feel anything at all. He watched my face as his hand ran up higher. Then he lowered his head towards my face. I didn't move, didn't protest when his tongue ran up my neck, I could only close my eyes and grit my teeth as my body gave out incredible shudders.

I don't know how or what or when or why, but something had sparked inside the both of us. The second I noticed those flames in his eyes burst into a roaring, unstoppable mass of chaos, I choose to fight fire with fire. Who knew if I were as talented as Axel was when it came to such an element, but hell I had to find out.

I leapt up, wrapping my legs around his waist and crushing our bodies together so we were now sitting up. I pressed my lips to his into a rough and relentless kiss, attacking him like an animal. I trapped him with my arms around his neck and I pressed our groins together hard. I didn't stop, I ate away, and before I knew it, Axel's tongue was gliding across mine in a power hungry dance. I pressed myself harder against him, creating a groaning noise from the red-headed monster, then my fingers found their way through his hair, clutching, tugging, pulling. His hands were already up my T-shirt, and I felt cold fingers run themselves up and down my chest.

There was no other way of doing what we wanted to do. We couldn't hit each other anymore in fear of doing too much damage, we couldn't insult each other properly because there was never anything to insult. We couldn't compare things, because we were equal. We couldn't hurt each other in any way shape or form… it simply wasn't in the cards for us.

We wanted so badly to prove something to each other, prove that we held some sort of control over our lives. So this, what we were doing, it was the only option left.

In an instant my body was craving, and before I even understood, Axel was ripping my clothes off and throwing them to the floor. He'd lift up my t-shirt, and my hands would steadily unbutton his pants.

My mind seemed clear, clear as day when he'd sink his teeth into my skin, and I'd rip my nails against the flesh of his back. When he'd let out a rough breath then thrust himself inside of me, flames would somehow transform into a flowing waterfall. I'd throw my head back with a throaty gasp, and the blood from his lip would smear against the stretched flesh on my throat.

Everything was clear, messy, jumbled, understandable… and it all made perfect sense. In our world those flames would rise from the depths of the ocean bed. Nothing would crush us, destroy us, extinguish us… nothing would ever get in our way. In that moment I understood why Axel admired his obsession so much.

I rode him and I wanted more and more. I was so hungry. I found my self moaning his name every time he'd thrust into me in and out, in and out. When I'd suddenly move a lot slower, just to tease him, I panted so hard, my forehead leaning onto his shoulder. I'd wanted something like this for so long, so damn long. A kiss, some contact, a good hard fuck.

Axel groaned, pulling my head up and forcing my eyes into his. As I rolled my hips slowly, we stared, panting and groaning. He had to hold my head up to keep it from flopping down again, and even then my eyes would sometimes roll back as he'd thrust himself right into my soft spot. His eyes would always stay on mine though, carefully watching what he was creating, what he had _created_, from the second he had met me. God knows I wouldn't be doing this if I had met someone like Sora first and deemed _him_ my best friend.

Something else struck me while he started to run his pearly whites down my exposed neck. I stared at the ceiling, my eyes half-lidded and my mouth gaped with escaping low moans. I realised what I was actually doing, as I stared so aimlessly at the dull coloured paint… yet, I could not and would not stop myself. My hands were grasped too tight on Axel's shoulders for me to stop and let go. My whole body refused me, including my own damn mind. And because of that, the weird realisation quickly faded into overflowing waves of pleasure.

The pleasure was becoming all too much. I gritted my teeth, leaned my forehead hard against Axel's, and before I knew it I started climaxing. He must have been doing the same… his grip on my thighs became so painful it just added to the pleasure.

When we were spent, Axel flopped backwards and I landed on top of him, just trying to catch my breath as I lay on his panting chest.

I suppose once all that emotion and pleasure had slowly vanished, we didn't really know what we should have done or said next. So we didn't even try. Axel just fell asleep… and in a final act of desperation and defeat, I shook as my fingers gripped on his naked chest. Then my eyes slipped shut, and I too fell asleep on top of him.

Then of course in the morning Axel would get up earlier than normal and leave me in there. Somehow he'd managed to move me off of him without waking me, but he made his mistake of leaving the cover over my back. He should have _known _I was a light sleeper. He'd leave the flat earlier too, just to avoid any conversation with me. I would just lie on the bed facing the wall as I heard the flat door close.

In a perfect world I would probably have woken up to the smiling face of Axel's affection. He'd have breakfast in bed waiting for me on the side table, and he'd tell me we were both going to take a day off to talk about things. Maybe we'd have a little more sex.

But as I said before… this is not a fantasy, a fairy tale or a game. I told you I was going to tell the truth. I really hope you weren't hoping for a mushy love story. This memory is not made up of that. Because you see, 'love' simply wasn't in it for me… or for Axel.


	5. Chapter 5

"I heard he got hit by a bus."

"Man, he's so quiet today, what do you think happened?"

"Maybe he got abducted by aliens…and… and they sucked the life out of him!"

"Someone told me Seifer lashed out on him for no reason."

"I reckon he just fell down the stairs like the idiot he is."

"He hasn't said a word all day."

"It's not like him at all…"

"Maybe it was…"

I tell you, the mutters and hushed secrets than fluttered into my hearing as I walked through the college hallways, they were unusually blunt today. Some poor chump had got himself at the top of the gossip board, and I was actually ashamed to be intrigued as to who it was. But me being the nice guy I am, I didn't let it bother me too much and I didn't stoop low enough to ask what the hell was going on. It _sounded_ like someone had got hurt. That's all my curiosity needed to know.

I headed into the student café to grab some breakfast, seeing as Axel hadn't been thoughtful enough to leave me anything in the fridge. Man, he'd better hope I didn't see him today, for a number of reasons. Mainly because of how annoyed I was at him. I was actually hoping I wouldn't see him until we both got home anyway… I didn't want to imagine how awkward we'd be if we saw each other in college. Axel only seemed to open up when he was on his own. At college he just put on the tough guy act, which I guess was what any other guy would do normally. As for me, I couldn't care less, so I really didn't understand.

I grabbed an apple, a sandwich and an orange juice from the stall. Nice and traditional. Then I scanned the mass of students sat down on the grey coloured tables, all chatting and eating without a care in the world.

After a while I felt a bit stupid just standing there, so I started moving forward even though there wasn't really anywhere to walk to, but lucky for me I noticed Kairi in the distance talking to Riku. I hadn't spoken to either of them in a while. I wondered if it'd be awkward just sitting with them, but hell, I took my chances.

"Wow, hey Roxas!" Kairi kindly greeted me as I sat down. "Where have you been, stranger?"

I smiled at her, getting comfy in the seat opposite to the red head and the… silver head. We always thought Riku must have had a pigment problem, might explain how icy blue his eyes were as well.

"You know what exams are like at the moment, Kairi," Riku said, taking a bite out of his ham roll, "No one has time for friends anymore." His sharp beady eyes carefully looked at me.

I rolled my eyes at his snide little comment. It took a while to get used to Riku's arrogance and standards that the ladies oh so graciously fell for… _all_ the time. After a while all you could do is laugh to yourself about it. But the guy was loyal and an incredibly trustworthy person, if you were on his good side. Once you were on you're his bad side… well, we'll leave that for now.

"Riku's half right. I have been really busy with exams."

Kairi shrugged and rested her elbow on the table. "Hmm, can't be helped."

A little silence fell upon us as Riku and Kairi took bites out of their food. It was a comfortable silence, the kind of silence that just couldn't affect anything no matter how silent it actually was. We were all friends, no matter how long we wouldn't talk to each other for. We'd always be there.

Riku swallowed his food and looked back at me with those solemn eyes. "Did you hear about Sora?"

I was going to take a bite out of my shiny red apple, but hesitated at Riku's tone of voice. It was so distressing. Like the whole world had suddenly imploded and left nothing but a shell that would last only 24 hours.

I looked at Riku, letting my confused expression speak for itself.

"The whole college has been talking about it all morning, Roxas," Kairi muttered under her breath.

Riku lowered his voice and hunched down a little. "You _do_ know his parents came home yesterday?"

"Yeah he told me yesterday morning…" I thought back, remembering how disrupt Sora looked in Biology yesterday. Then realisation hit me and I closed my eyes, suddenly not interested in eating anymore. "Is he okay?"

"What do you think?"

I frowned, anger building up inside of me in thought of Sora's parents. The poor guy. His spirit was probably crushed to pieces, thinking how exciting it would be to see his parents again then getting thrown down by their inhuman methods of parenting. I hadn't seen him yet, but I could only imagine the inner and outer marks left on him. "Those fucks."

Riku looked at me. "I doubt he'll be staying in college the whole day. So if you want to see him, I suggest looking for him now."

I nodded, shoving my untouched food into my bag and getting up. "Thanks."

"Give him my love, would you?"

I looked at Kairi, and her eyes were so worn down, so incredibly sad. Then I slowed down, just taking in the look on her face, grasping how much we all really cared about Sora. He was all our friend, yet I was the only one that ever spoke to him about serious things and maybe the only one he could ever own up to. I realised that now, just by understanding the empty look draining from Kairi's eyes. She wished she could help, they all wished they could help, but for some reason they all cried out to me because I was the only one that _could_ help… help Sora.

"You know he'll be tugging at your hair by the end of next lesson," I said with a promising smile.

She gave me a smile, a smile that made me feel so warm. It was a smile that said she trusted me. "I hope so."

"Thanks, Roxas."

I turned my head to Riku, saw the impressed look on his face and just gave him a nod. Then, I was on my way.

xxx

I knew where Sora would be. He wasn't the type to run away or the type to change routine. So I knew he'd be sitting under the old oak tree at the end of the college playing field. Our group of friends had spent many a summer's day sat under that huge tree. When we were all younger it was sort of like our base, but now it was just like our small sanctuary to get away to, a little place to kind of escape from reality, and to let our minds take a break from control.

I looked at Sora from a distance on the green grass as he sat under the tree, leaning his back against the thick trunk and smiling up at the sky. It was easy to notice the marks on his face from yards away, and I had to slow my pace down a little in fear of scaring him half to death. I don't really know why. I guess everyone had instincts to be extra careful around people who had recently been in some sort of trauma.

When I finally reached him, I crouched down in front of him silently, just looking at his face with sympathy. Not too much sympathy though. I'm sure he'd had enough of that all day.

His beaten face lowered down from the sky to meet with mine and he just grinned at me. Just fucking smiled like nothing had happened and all was right with the world.

I found it somewhat hard to smile back at him. "How long are you gonna keep this up, huh?"

He simply folded his arms above himself and rested his palms on the back of his head. "As long as it takes," he calmly retorted.

I stared, feeling like it was useless in trying to talk him out of his whole charade in thinking his parents were good people.

"I'll do something right… one day."

"Sora you…" I stopped halfway, deciding not to argue with him about it. My mouth paused at what I was about to say, making a dumb little 'O' with my mouth. I paused because it was something I, Roxas, would probably never admit to anyone, but I went ahead and said it anyway because I felt like he deserved it. "You're the nicest guy I've ever met."

It was true. Sure he wasn't my _closest_ or _best_ friend, but he was damn well the nicest. He was too nice for his own damn good. Not like Axel, he wasn't a nice guy at all. In fact Sora was the only nice guy I could tolerate. Nice guys were too damn fake and clueless to know that the world really wasn't as perfect as they thought, and they'd only been dumb enough to get that idea because other people had _shoved_ all that bullshit into their heads.

Sora wasn't exactly like that because he knew the world was shit, but he just didn't have the courage to admit it because he was scared of letting the world beat him down. But me, I didn't stick by him to protect him from the world, I stood by him to try and make him stronger so he could protect himself. The kid still had a lot to learn though.

Sora chuckled, the sun catching the side of his face. It highlighted the purple bruises around his eyes and the cuts on his cheeks, but if you ignored it all, he was picture perfect. Like his whole self was a ray of sunshine just proven through his childish laughter. I guess I couldn't help but smile at that.

Sora's big blues looked right at me. "You know Roxas, at the first moment I met you, I never took you for the cheesy type."

I waved my hand in the air. "Well _excuse_ me."

Another smile from him, and I decided to sit myself next to him, ignoring the lesson I was supposed to be at.

I felt as if I should tell Sora. It was like he had a right to know. He told me all the things of his parents and what he was going through, and I never thought to return the favour.

"You know, my mother's going to be around town next week."

Sora's eyes widened a little in surprise as he looked at me. "Are you going to see her?"

"No."

He stared at me for a minute, then nodded his head. He started to pick at the green grass, obviously something bothering him.

"I just, I don't want to know. I don't want to know the reasons of what she did. I don't even want to know what she's like, whether she be the nicest or cruellest person in the world. She's a memory that deserves to be forgotten."

"I guess ignorance is bliss…"

I nodded. "I think it is in this case."

Sora smiled, shuffling his body around to face mine. "Roxas, let's run away!"

I watched his bright face, his eyes pleading at mine.

"You were thinking of doing it anyway, weren't you?"

"How did…"

"Axel told me you weren't going to be around for a week or so, he never told me why though. I guess this is why."

I was surprised that Axel actually took me seriously. Even more surprised at how quickly Sora had caught on. "Sora, I'm only going for a week, then I'd have to come back. What would your parents do if you suddenly came back from a week's disappearance?"

His eyes lost their brightness, and he simply nodded. "Don't you have a lesson to get to?"

"Trying to get rid of me?"

He sat straight, staring back up the sky like it was going to throw some answers at him. "I was trying to sleep."

I squinted the side of my mouth. I guess he wasn't getting much sleep at home now. "Feel free if you ever need to stay at my flat… you know, if you ever need to catch up on sleep."

"And listen to nothing but you and Axel bitch at each other like a married couple?" He laughed, "No thanks."

I frowned. "Hey, I'm serious."

"Yeah, yeah I know. Thanks, Roxas."

I stood to my feet and held the strap of my bag on my shoulder, looking down at Sora's tired form. "I'll let you sleep then. I just wanted to check up on you."

A wave of his hand and his eyes slipped shut with a small grin still plastered across his face. "I'm fine you big tard. Now get out of here."

I gave a half hearted smile. The kid was brave… I had to give him that. "I'll be seeing you later, alright?"

He didn't bother answering, and with that, I headed off to my lesson.

xxx

I walked in the flat and shut the door behind me. I dumped my bag on the floor then headed into the living room. The warmth of the room made me moan into my mouth then I simply flung my body face first onto the sofa.

Today, yesterday, last night… had put a drain on me. I had a lot on my mind and I didn't know what to do with it. My main problem was next week and where I was going to go and how I was going to convince my college tutors that I needed the week off. The second being Sora and how shit I felt for him. Then the third being Axel.

I hadn't heard a noise since I came in, so I assumed Axel wasn't there. The utter fuckface had been avoiding me all day. I couldn't say I was surprised, but I could say I was very pissed at how much of a coward he sometimes was.

Just as I lifted my head up for air, my eyes caught sight of a small piece of paper on the coffee table. Curiously, I opened it and read the messy contents.

_I suppose I'm being a jerk. Come to Hayner's party tonight and we'll sort it._

I read over Axel's blunt note a few times before coming to a conclusion. Yes, I would go. I deserved a night out anyway. I needed a drink, good company and a little escape. So I got up off my ass, headed upstairs for a shower and then smartened myself up with a nice shirt and a dab of cologne.

I headed out of the door and locked up about three hours later. I passed my neighbour on the way down and greeted him with a little smile. He gave a huge grin back, seeming impressed by something.

"Cor Roxas, you going on a date or something?"

"Oh come on Xigbar, you know Namine wouldn't approve of that."

Xigbar gave me a sly little smirk and then added his imfamous wink. "You're secret's safe with me, bud."

Before I had time to argue, he'd gone back inside and shut the door in my dumfounded face. I frowned, pouted, then made my way towards Hayner's house. I hadn't even noticed I'd made myself look _that_ impressive. Just a few nice clothes, a little hair gel, a dab of my favourite cologne, even ironed my jeans...

Okay, so I made more of an effort that I thought. Shut up.

I headed toward the north of the town, where the pavement became steep and the streets alot leaner. Hayner was a rich kid, so it was expected that'd he'd live in a posh area of the town. He even owned a summer house down there as well as a normal mini-mansion. Tonight I was guessing his party was at the summer house as normal, otherwise Axel would have said something.

It was a big open-porched house by the river-side. There were no neighbours, only one road and no one around to bother the inhabitants. Beyond it was the forest, where people would go on drunken adventures to either get a bit of nooky or just to be too high to know where they were going. The forest was a classic place. Axel and I had even woke up in there after a night out without knowing how we got there in the first place. It took us around three hours to finally find our way out again.

I walked down the narrow road and saw the house in the distance, noticing how the party had already started. I could hear yelling and music and all kinds of different voices. A few booming cars drove past me, sometimes shouting my name in greeting. I never really bothered to check who they were.

Once I stepped foot onto the front garden, a hand was already on my shoulder and I turned to see a very wobbly looking Kairi.

"Roxas! You came! I swear someone told me you had left town for a week…"

"Next week, Kairi," I smiled, holding her up so she didn't fall over. I took her drink out of her hand before she spilled it all down herself and ruined her pretty little dress, and she just grinned at me.

"I dunno where H-Hayner is, he might have gone into the woods… but I dunno where Hayner is…"

"Yeah wouldn't surprise me… uh… RIKU!"

Sure enough, the silver-haired boy turned around at his name and noticed me beckoning him over with my hand. He laughed, and strode over toward me and the drunken Kairi.

"Hey Roxas," he said and eyed the pair of us. "Need a hand?"

"Take her inside would you?"

He laughed and lifted Kairi's chin up so she looked at him. "You're alright aren't ya girl?"

"I'm fucking brilliant, Riku!" She laughed, flinging her arms around his neck.

Before I even noticed, Riku lifted her up into a fireman's lift and looked at me. "Axel's round the back by the bonfire."

Then he left, carrying Kairi into the house with the booming music. I just sighed, making my way around the house toward the back garden, avoiding all the beer cans littered on the grass.

Everyone was far more drunk than I had expected. I didn't anticipate the party to be a full-blown rave, just the normal house parties that Hayner threw that involved getting merry and having a good time. I didn't complain though, I left everyone to their own devices as they shouted and ran around the place like mad idiots.

The back garden was obviously huge. It stretched as far as the edge of the river side. People were scattered all over it, talking, drinking laughing, dancing, making out, puking… in a sense it was a typical teenage atmosphere. There weren't any adults to stand around telling us what and what not to do, everyone would do what their intoxicated minds told them to.

I looked towards the side and saw the huge glow of the bonfire that was neatly placed just on the side of the river, and low and behold there I saw the mane of bright red hair facing directly towards it. I looked around first, not noticing any sound of acoustic guitar, meaning it was likely Demyx wasn't here to annoy the hell out of me. I didn't get my hopes up though, that guy always popped out of places when I never wanted or expected him to.

I took a breath, and walked towards the glowing end of the party.

"Typical seeing you here and not getting wasted out there," I said, standing behind Axel's crossed-legged form.

He lifted his hand up where he was holding a cup of brightly coloured god-knows-what. "I can multi-task." He tore his eyes away from the fire to turn his body round to face me. "I didn't really expect you to come."

I sat down next to him, watching the bright coloured flames with him. The heat was intense. I didn't know how he could stand it for such a long time. "Well, surprise."

He smiled. "You smell nice."

I looked at him, the reflections of golden flames in his green feline eyes. Green, gold and red. Kind of reminded me of Christmas…

"_Come on Roxas let me open the first present!"_

"_You opened the first one last year!"_

"_Mum, tell him!"_

I chuckled lightly to myself and he looked at me. "Something funny?"

I watched the flames again, taking a little breath. "Just kind of realising how different things are now."

"What, since we…?"

"I guess that confirmed it, yeah."

Axel looked down at the burnt grass on the edges of the flames, and I could tell he was trying to think of something to say. Maybe an explanation or even an apology. To be honest, I didn't want an apology at all. "I don't know what happened, but I know you and I don't do things like that for no reason."

My eyes forced themselves into his once I knew he was looking at me. It was true. I knew I had a reason, maybe it wasn't a reason that could be explained very well, but I knew there was a damn good reason that I had hard sex with my best friend. "You're right…"

Just when I thought things couldn't get any more awkward, it did. The oh so glorious music of acoustic guitar flowed abruptly through our hearing, and before I knew it, Demyx had come skipping along, putting his guitar down next to us and wrapping his arms around Axel's shoulders from behind.

"Hey baby, you've been sat here all night," then he whispered something into his ear, all the while making me want to shrink into a hole and just disappear.

Axel held the musically talented hands on his chest, looking to the ground in front of him but never smiling or ever making eye contact with either of us. I almost felt bad for him. "I'll be in a minute," was all he mumbled to his loving boyfriend.

I hated seeing Axel so vulnerable. Axel was a lot taller than Demyx, somewhat broader and his personality just completely dominated Demyx' at any occasion… but not this. When Demyx had his arms locked protectively around Axel like that, his body arching around his head, and his mood seeming a lot bigger than Axel's... it wasn't right. Demyx was the kind of person that reeked of submission, yet there he was grinning down at Axel's distressed expression. I had to bite my tongue as I glared at the boy.

Then Demyx looked at me, noting how equally distressed my eyes were. Then he suddenly looked puzzled. "You two have another fight or something?"

I couldn't help it, the boy irritated me to no extent, "Quite the opposite actually," I spat.

Axel's head snapped up and he glared at me, daring me to say another word. I frowned so hard my brows began to hurt as I looked right back at him, screaming at him that his boyfriend needed to be gone before I said something I regretted.

"Demyx, I'll be in a moment, okay?" He turned his head and gave Demyx a quick kiss on the lips. I crooked my head away irritated.

After he left, Axel looked back at me, obviously annoyed. "If you say anything to him Roxas, I swear I'll never forgive you."

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled. "Pretty loving talk for someone who soberly cheated on him."

He didn't deny it and he didn't snap back at me, which kind of surprised me. "What about Namine?"

I scoffed. "You know me and her are practically on the verge of a break-up. I'm sure she's cheated on me thrice as many times."

"So you have nothing to regret, do you?"

My eyes widened for a moment, a wash of fear running down my spine before it disappeared again. "You're saying that you regret it?"

"No… but it was the wrong thing to do."

"And since when did you worry about morals, Axel?!" I slightly yelled, getting angrier by the minute.

I felt as if I had clearly over-looked the whole situation and that I'd been a fool to think it really meant something at all. Of course I wasn't expecting him to admit his undying love for me, dump Demyx then take my hand and run off into the sunset. I was only expecting a decent reason and no regrets. Regrets were pointless, because at the end of the day no one could ever turn back time so why should anyone worry about what they did or didn't do in the past. I didn't want anything else from Axel, I assumed it was a one time thing, so what was the big fucking deal? Axel and I had been together far too long and our relationship was beyond strong enough to handle a situation like this one. At least, that was what I thought.

"Roxas, this whole thing has really got to me, and for the love of God I can't explain why. Can you just give me a break for once?"

"What the hell do you mean? You asked me to come down so we could sort this. So let's sort this."

He picked at the grass, throwing it aggressively into the wild fire. "Things are just kind of weird between us, and I don't like it."

I pulled a face. "Well you should have thought about before you shoved your dick up my-"

"Okay! I fucking get it!" He turned around to fully face me and pierced his eyes toward mine angrily. "I just want to know if you're okay Roxas! Jesus fucking Christ!"

His outburst shut me up, and I just sat there silently for a minute. I realised that I was being quite insensitive to him, but I was used to it because he never usually seemed to care. I guess this time he really did care, and it confused the hell out of me. I didn't know what to say next in fear of saying the wrong thing, so I blankly mumbled, "I'm fine."

Axel watched me. He looked at my face with such a defenceless look. Then I _really_ didn't know what to do. He sighed and rose to his feet. "I better find Demyx. Enjoy your night." With a soft ruffle of my hair, he left me there by the bonfire.

I stared into the flames with no expression. As the orange flames licked at the air, I winced. The heat was too intense for little old me.


	6. Chapter 6

My night was ruined. I felt a little lost not knowing what Axel was thinking, and I felt like an asshole for shoving our little situation to the side as if we both didn't have to worry about it, but he was clearly worried about it, and I guess it scared me. I was really contemplating on leaving and letting him have a good night without having to worry about me, but I thought, fuck it. He wasn't the only one feeling shit, so I grabbed a beer, found Hayner and basically tried to waste myself.

It worked, the beer actually works sometimes. My mind was such a blur when I went running into the forest with Riku, Kairi, Hayner, Ollette and some other people. I can't remember why we went in there, but when did anyone ever know what they were doing when they ran into a forest with a crate of beer?

Once we found a small opening between the huge trees and branches, we all sat down in a circle on some logs and babbled on about stuff and laughed like everything was damn hilarious. My drunken smile never left my face as I laughed away with everyone. Everything just seemed so acceptingly fake when you were drunk.

"Alright kids! SPIN THE FRIGGIN' BOTTLE!" Hayner yelled. A few people kind of cheered, but no one was sober enough to really pay attention to what was going on. I don't even think Hayner knew himself.

Hayner had all these glow sticks round his neck, and it was really tripping my head out. The glow didn't seem to follow my regular line of vision, instead I just saw bright glowing lines running in all directions with each movement. I couldn't stop laughing at them. The guy next to me started laughing at me sweetly, I think his name was Marluxia, but I'd just been calling him 'that fit boy' all night.

"How about we just kiss the next hottest person we see?" Marluxia said, facing me closely, not really saying it to everyone because he knew no one was listening but me. He gave me a flirtatious smile and I just had to grin back.

"Uh, Marluxia, are you hitting on me sir?" I slurred as I kept backing my head away from his daring face.

"You'd like that wouldn't you?" He whispered, sending a pleasant chill up my spine.

"No he fucking wouldn't."

Wait, that wasn't my voice. Far from it. I frowned at Marluxia despite myself then turned my head to the side. I didn't know where he came from but Axel was suddenly standing in front of us, a beer in one hand and a lighter held firm in the other.

Marluxia smirked. "Axel, meet my new friend Roxas. He's a real babe."

"Ugh, stay away from him you moron," Axel said loudly, grabbing my arm and yanking me off of the muddy log. I didn't know whether he'd said that to me or Marluxia, but I didn't ask after my head span at the sudden movement.

I frowned at Axel. "What's your problem?" I asked groggily.

He seemed pretty out of as well, because it took him a few moments to look at me and answer. "I came to see what everyone was doing out here… I can't remember where I left my drink…"

His face looked so confused and cute, so I smiled and held the back of hand where his drink was being held firmly in his lean fingers. "Right here you dobe," I said softly.

He stared at my face, ignoring what I said as he looked very engrossed. "Whoa, Roxy, your eyes are really sparkly. What've you been taking?"

I smiled again.

"Roxas? I didn't know you knew Axel," Marluxia stood up and said, making himself known.

Axel frowned and swivelled his head dramatically towards Marluxia, giving him a death glare. "Then _clearly_ you're new around here."

Axel turned his face back to mine. I hadn't really moved my eyes from his face for that whole interrupting minute.

"Hey I'm not _that_ new!"

"Buzz off…" Axel said back to him whilst smiling at me. I cocked my head to the side, wondering what he was thinking.

"Where's Demyx?" I asked, my grip slightly tensing on the back of his hand.

Axel still playfully grinned at me, his eyebrows slightly rising. "Why do you ask?"

I bowed my head, eyeing the wrinkles in his black t-shirt. "Because I don't think I could handle too much jealousy tonight."

"Oh? So _that's_ why you don't like him."

My words flew honestly out of my mouth, but I was too drunk to give a damn, and by the looks of it so was Axel. It's not like he'd remember anything the morning after anyway. It's like that horrible Razorlight song goes, 'In the morning, you know it's gonna be alright'. A pathetic, nervous curl of my lips made my eyes fall to the ground. "I thought you'd figured that out by now."

Marluxia watched us both from the side, noticing how close we were. "I see you're dearly taken, Roxas. Sorry about that Axel…" he said and rubbed the back of his head.

At that statement, mine and Axel's eyes widened and we suddenly pulled ourselves away from each other as if burnt. I hadn't even noticed we looked that close, and I seriously didn't want to give that impression to anyone.

Axel nervously laughed, looking between me and Marluxia. "No, no, he's not my boyfriend. He's more like my little brother."

I frowned, disgusted at that thought. How the hell could he say that, even if he _was_ just saying it for the sake of easing the awkwardness? I took a swig of my beer, to try and look casual, and sighed, walking away from the two and heading over to Riku who had Kairi sat on his lap giggling at whatever he'd just said to her.

Axel watched me walk away then turned his annoyed gaze back to Marluxia. "Listen, stay away from him. I know what you're like."

Marluxia smirked, folding his arms casually. "Whatever do you mean?"

Axel growled and grabbed the collar of Marluxia's white shirt roughly, eyeing flaming daggers into him. "I mean if you lay your dirty fingers on his pretty little head, I'll hack them right off."

Marluxia frowned, giving him an evil snarl. "Do something like that and I might just slip some information to Demyx about you and your precious 'brother'."

Axel's eyes formed into slits, his grip becoming a little tighter on Marluxia's collar. "You what?"

"I heard every word when you were talking to him by the bonfire. Every last dirty word."

Axel's mind became a sudden cloud of fog when he thought about the consequences of that little threat, and he thought it over fast. Everything, his happiness, his sanity, all of it would turn upside down. All because of some pink haired moron who couldn't keep his nose out of other people's business.

Axel couldn't help it, he was suddenly enraged. With his grip firm on Marluxia's collar he pushed the fist forward roughly and shoved Marluxia to the ground. The surprised pink haired boy yelped as Axel straddled his body and held his lighter toward his shocked face, but not flicking the flame on just yet. Axel's eyes were manic, as if they'd suddenly shone blood red. His grip stayed firm on Marluxia's collar and he was almost being choked. Axel edged the open zippo closer to his face, taunting him. Marluxia tried to keep his cool, tried not to look scared, but it was proving pretty hard. "You don't want to fuck with me, Marluxia…" The lighter's end moved towards the edges of his soft pink hair, and Axel readied his thumb on the switch like a gun's trigger.

Marluxia looked down at the lighter, a drop of sweat trickling down his brow. "You're insane."

Axel grinned. "I can be a lot more if you push me hard enough."

I was walking around the group absent-minded, watching everyone around me as they enjoyed themselves. The night had really calmed down by now, and most of the people were laying on the ground and staring up into the black sky smoking weed or just generally spacing out of this world. I heard a noise from behind me and I turned my head back to see a surprising image; Axel pinning Marluxia to the ground. I frowned, slightly confused for a second at the sight. But when I looked closely I started to notice a very familiar look in Axel's eyes. It took my responses a while to react, but when I did I cursed, running toward the two and doing the only thing that came to my head. I ran, and pushed Axel off of Marluxia as hard as I could.

The lighter flew out of his hand and Axel fell onto the leaf ridden soil sideways. He winced, quickly eyeing his attacker dangerously, and I had to take a step back when I suddenly felt really uncomfortable at that frightening gaze.

Marluxia scrambled to his feet, never taking his eyes off of Axel in fear he might surprise attack him again. I watched him stand and I noticed how distressed he was, and slightly astonished at the look of Axel on the floor. Axel was furious, and I didn't know what to do. I just preyed Marluxia would leave and not say another word, for his own sake.

Marluxia panted, looking from Axel to myself not knowing what to say. Why didn't he just fucking go? He stopped moving his head all over the place and stopped to look at me, still panting. "So this is your type? You filthy slut."

My eyes widened at the insult, then widened even more when it sunk in. He knew?

Before I even had time to think about it, Axel had leapt from the floor and was ready to strike a hard fist right into Marluxia's pretty face. But somehow an angel appeared and seemed to ironically save the bad guys ass. Riku held Axel back with a mighty strain. He was strong, but I knew he wasn't strong enough to hold Axel off.

Riku eyed Marluxia. "Get out of here pinky, I think you've caused enough trouble."

I watched the ground, not wanting to make eye contact, and Marluxia just stared after me as he left us. Then once he was out of eye's sight, Riku let go of Axel and shoved his shoulders telling him to calm down. Axel growled and reluctantly didn't chase after the pink haired moron.

I walked up to him and touched his arm, hoping to still him. Axel looked at me, as if a wild beast had just been tranquilized, eyes so full of defeat. He poured his gaze into mine, and it was then I realised we had a bit of a situation on our hands. The pink-haired Marluxia knew about what we did the other night, and information like that in anyone else's hands but ours was going to be incredibly dangerous. I hated to admit it, but I really wished Axel had scared him enough to not tell a soul.

"We'll sort it," he murmured so that Riku wouldn't hear.

"Yeah," I said, "Just not so much you'll end up getting arrested again, please."

His eyes fell to the floor, and I just let it go.

I heard running footsteps on the leaf ridden ground coming toward us from amongst the trees, and I turned my head to be brought with the sight of a worried looked Demyx running toward his beloved. Suddenly I panicked. What if Marluxia had told him already? What if he was running toward to me to give me a smacker right in the nose? I winced as he got closer, but he just ran right past me, flinging his arms around Axel and cooing loudly in his ear.

"You were in a fight again Axel? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" His hands roamed around Axel's body to try and find any wounds and he scanned his face for any cuts or bruises.

Axel simply smiled and pulled his hands away, holding them and giving him a slow kiss on the lips. "I'm fine, Demmy."

I watched them kiss and hold each other, watched as they smiled lovingly at each other. I could tell Axel was so happy. He was so relieved Demyx didn't know about what had happened yet. The only reason Axel got so angry and so full of wrath in the first place was because he was terrified of losing that happiness, and then I realised Demyx was the source of it all.

Axel was clutching so hard onto Demyx' hoody, and I just had to look away. Who was I to interfere when Axel was so happy? He deserved that happiness, he truly did. Some may beg to differ because of all the crimes and sins he had committed, but that was all just inconsequential. Axel had a heart that was never made to be broken, and if it ever was, that would be the biggest sin of all. How dare I be so careless and let a mistake like letting him cheat the man who makes him so damn happy happen without fail!

Axel was so content and I just… wasn't. Axel was the only person to ever make me as happy as Demyx makes him, maybe not in the same context, but in a much deeper way. Axel had given me a life worth living. I just felt so distressed because it was never the same with him for me, it was some other person making him happy. It was Demyx, and _that_ was the true reason I hated Demyx so much. It was as if he was a wall and I was behind it, and Axel was the sun radiating light toward the wall but only leaving me with a lonely shadow.

I was here before Demyx. **I was here first!**

I had left and gone home about an hour before Axel, I just sat on the couch until he returned. Tonight was such a headfuck for me. I wasn't even going over in my head what I'd say to him when he actually _did_ come back. So when he walked through the door, came in and gave me a blank look, I was practically speechless.

I slowly crossed my legs on the sofa and after a while of staring, and he crouched down infront of me, sighing and resting his hand on my knee softly. I really didn't know what to say to him, so I just didn't bother trying. I was so upset and irritated, and by the looks of it he was aswell. I looked at him with a worn out expression and his head looked up toward mine, green eyes slowly travelling toward my blue ones in a sort of reluctant movement. His eyes were tired. They weren't as sharp as they normally were. I stared at him. I knew too much about him, I knew everything there was to know about the sweet man infront of me, so much it wasn't even healthy for a simple friendship. So I knew there was something in his eyes hiding away from me, but there would _always_ be something hiding away with Axel.

I brought a shaky hand to his cheek and ran my fingers softly over his creamy skin, just to try and fool him into thinking that everything was okay, because I was sick of his mood. But his skin was so soft, like silk. I admired every touch it sent to my finger-tips, the contact instantly distracting me. His eyes fluttered closed, leaning into my touch, but I didn't smile. I found myself leaning forward automatically, inching my face closer to his, but my mouth gaped and I stopped myself quickly. Axel opened his eyes when my thumb stopped rubbing against his cheekbone, and unexpectedly I lost my breath. "I can't stand him…" I found myself whispering onto his lips.

Axel let out a shaky, almost weeping breath, as if he were prepared to hear such a statement about his lover. "I know."

I wanted to ask him so many questions, so many were running through my head. The main question being would he still be happy if Demyx never entered his life, if he only had me would he _still_ be as happy with everything as he was now? I couldn't ask him, I didn't dare. I knew whenever I asked a question as trite as the ones I had now, they would always be left ignored and unanswered, because he knew that I should already know the answer. Ironically enough, I hardly ever did.

After a few moments of watching Axel breathe shakily, his grip on my knee becoming somewhat tighter, I moved my hand away from his face. "Goodnight, Axel."

I shifted away from him and got off of the couch, feeling his trembling as I moved my body away from his. I lingered by the doorway with my sad eyes gazed upon him as he forced and willed himself not to let a single tear escape him. I knew this, because I had done it so many times. I had no idea what got Axel so worked up to look so pathetic, but I assumed it was the alcohol. Like I never did, I didn't ask questions. I turned my head to leave.

"As long as you're happy…" he suddenly burst, making me stop dead in my tracks at the nostalgic words. He turned his head to face me and repeated, "As long as you're happy..." then his features snarled, taking a breath, "Roxas."

He was tense, angered and frustrated, and my gut feeling told me it wasn't all because of tonight's turn of events. My head lowered and I replied blankly, "I'm not happy."

Then as if on que, like those words sent a bullet through his composure, a tear that diminished every living fibre of Axel's personality, rolled down his horrified face. It made me feel like a cruel bastard, and it almost broke my heart, so I left before I could watch any longer.

I went to bed, then decided that I'd leave town the next morning, just for a while so that dirty rumours couldn't be fed and dirty relatives couldn't be found. Axel would be fine, he had Demyx after all, and having me out of the way for a while would definitely bring him some comfort. I'd done nothing but become a burden these past few days, and it confused me to no extent as to how it all happened so abruptly. We'd both shed incredibly rare tears and it wasn't right at all. A week away would clear my head, refresh everything, so that when I came back everything would be just like it was, like it should be.

xxx

The next morning I quietly packed a small bag of clothes and anything I needed for the coming week. I rang up the college telling them I'd be out of town, and they hesitantly complied. I didn't bother ringing anyone else before I left, I hadn't even bothered saying goodbye to Axel. I left him a simple note on the coffee table telling him I'd be back soon.

A light bulb switched on in my head as I threw another T-shirt into my bag. I had an idea for a detour on my way to the train station, so I hurried myself up and slipped my feet into my shoes. The idea got me thrilled, so when I hurried down the stairs and slammed the front door after me I did not think to be quiet about it. So naturally, our creepy next door neighbour sprung his head out of his front door before I could even make it past the gate.

"In a rush, Roxas? Hey? It's 7am!" He yelled, agitated.

"Sorry Xigbar, I'm going away for a week, so you'll be free of me for a while."

"Pah. Where you going? Holiday? You kids get too many holidays I swear."

"Not really a holiday…" I mumbled, then realising I should probably get going. "Anyway, I have to run, see you."

"Don't do anything I would."

I'd dread to think.

On my way down the road with my backpack on my back and my hoody tied round my waist, I rounded a different corner and headed toward the small blue house at the end of the street.

I had someone to take with me. Maybe not for the company, but just someone who deserved a "holiday" as Xigbar put it. A person I knew would be tricky to get out, but it was something I felt I had to do. My intentions always made perfect sense, honestly.

I didn't bother knocking on the front door, instead I snuck round the trashed up back garden and climbed awkwardly up the drain pipe toward the window with the echoing soft music. My footing wasn't very safe, and the weight of my bag didn't help the situation at all, but eventually I made it to the rim of the window, and I heaved myself over it, panting like a bitch.

I heard a yelp from the surprised occupant inside the room as my body came tumbling to the carpeted ground. I looked up from the floor and smiled at the brown haired boy.

"Roxas! What the hell?!"

"I have a proposition, Sora."

He moved his head from side to side nervously, then scurried over to his door, resting his ear on the wood to try and listen out for something. While he did that, I got up off my ass and dusted myself off, pulling my bag off my shoulders and dumping it on his small bed.

"This had better be good, if my parents know you're here, I don't-"

"It's okay, I was all James Bond like."

Sora moved his head from the door, the coast obviously being clear. He walked up to me, watching curiously at me then eyeing my stuffed up bag on the bed. "You come for a sleep over or something?"

"No," I dismissed, sitting myself on the edge of his bed. "You know I was telling you I'd be going away for a week? Well I'm going now."

"That's great. So why are you here?"

"You're coming with me."

Sora looked at me funny, not believing a word I said. "Uh, what?"

"You said you wanted to run away, well here's your chance."

"Yeah but didn't you say it wouldn't be a good idea because when I got back my parents would literally murder me?"

I looked to the floor, trying to patch together a firm solution in my head that would work. I thought quickly, too quickly. "You won't have to come back, you can live with me."

Sora laughed in my face, obviously declining my request.

"Or you could-"

"Why all of a sudden the change of heart?"

I paused, realising it really was a change for me to say or do something like this. "I guess a lot of things have changed these past few days. It feels like everything's upside down, and I want you to come with me to the surface so I can figure out how to turn everything back round when I come back."

Sora smiled at my delicate speech. "Why me?"

"Because… everything's upside down for you aswell. Your parents shouldn't be here. And you need to think of a way out."

Sora nodded slowly, then sighed to himself quietly. "Roxas… I really appreciate you thinking of my well being, but I can handle it. My parents are the ones needing help, not me."

_Bullshit,_ I spat in my head. "Then can you come with me anyway? Can you handle what your parents will do when you come back?" It wasn't that I didn't give a shit what happened to him if he came back to his parents after a week's disappearance, it's just that I had confidence in changing his mind once we were out of town, then by the end of the week he wouldn't even _need_ to handle anything.

Sora sighed again, flopping backwards onto the bed and folding his arms above his head. He thought hard to himself, pouting as little things came to his head. "Do you think leaving this town would clear your head? I've never left this town, so I don't know what it's like."

"Leaving this town is like diving into the ocean. It's a completely new experience to try and survive in."

Sora scoffed, raising his head a little to look at me. "Are you saying we're gonna drown and die?"

I looked to the ceiling. "I'm saying we're fish on the surface practically dying already."

Sora lifted himself back up again with a huge exhale of breath. "Then let's do it. Your dramatic speeches are enough to win anyone over."

I grinned towards him, about to thank him, but Sora's mobile vibrated roughly on his side table, interrupting us both. Sora leant over me to pick it up and answered. "Hello hello?"

I watched him talk, naturally curious as to who it was and what it was about.

"Hey Axel?"

My eyes widened, shooting a weird glance at Sora.

Sora looked at me confused, listening to the other end of the line. "Uhh Roxas?"

I shook my head frantically, waving my hands in front of him.

"I haven't seen him, sorry. Yeah… okay. Will do. Bye." Sora hung up and scoffed. "Funny, I thought he'd be coming with us."

"God no, he's the last person I would have brought with me," I said, shaking my head.

Sora tilted his head, pouting curiously at me. "What's going on with you two recently? You've both been acting really weird."

I stood up, dusting my pants for no particular reason and turned my head to face him. "I'll try and explain everything later. Right now you need to pack 'cause our trains coming in an hour."

Sora looked around him, visually fussing over what he'd take with him. "Uhh…"

I sighed. "A few clothes, wallet, phone, nail varnish…"

"You kinda sprung this on me, Roxas. Most of my clothes are in the wash."

"Grab what you can, you look fine no matter what you wear."

"You're only saying that to hurry me up," Sora mumbled, opening a few drawers and scooping out some clothes.

I sat on the window sill this time, watching Sora with a thoughtful look as he picked up different hair gels then put them back down again, not knowing which one to pack. I looked at his face, his totally calm face, not a care in the world for what he was doing, or for what he was about to do. I really _did_ spring this upon him. I hoped he wasn't doing what he was doing without thinking straight. I'd hate for us to come home and my efforts totally failed, so that Sora would have to go home to unwelcoming fist.

"Sora," I said seriously.

He looked up from his desk questioningly.

"Don't do this if you really don't want to."

Sora looked at me blankly for a few seconds just wondering what I was talking about, but soon broke out into a cheerful smile. "No sweat, this'll be like an adventure."

xxx

Axel's foot smashed into the wooden coffee table violently with a loud growl. He was pissed, he was more than pissed. Not only did he wake up with a raging hangover, headaches and dizziness and all, he'd also woken up to be left with a pathetic note saying 'I'll be back soon' and nothing more. There was no food in the cupboards or the fridge, there was no money left for the gas or electric meter, no money left for anything at all. I knew that Axel didn't work and had no money, that he literally lived off of all my earnings and a few tiny quids he got from student allowances. I guess I hadn't done it on purpose, I just didn't think about it.

Axel stormed through the flat, punching a few doors on his way then gradually reaching the phone. He called a few people, asked a few questions, called more people, called the college, basically tried to find out where the fuck I'd gone. I'd been clever enough to switch my phone off so that _no one_ could call me, let alone Axel.

Axel's efforts went in vain. No one knew where I was, and the only person who did was sworn to secrecy. So Axel threw the phone to the ground in an act of pure frustration. Then he was silent, thinking things over as clearly as his hungover brain could. Axel sat down on the couch, running a hand through his hair then flopping his head down in slow defeat.

"Roxas, you little fuck."


	7. Chapter 7

_Hey guys, hope you're still keeping up with this :) Just want to say thanks for all the great reviews, they really brighten up my day!_

xxx

The hotel room Sora and I were sharing was very small and cramped, but Sora was insisting it were described more as small and cosy. I found it hard to agree. The walls were stained, the floor was creaky and the other inhabitants were less then unsocial. Sora tried to make his mattress a little less hard by jumping up and down on it, making this awful shrieking noise as the springs strained on his weight. He agreed to stop when my glare was aimed in his direction.

So the room wasn't perfect but it was all our crappy part-time wages could afford, and it was a lot better than staying in a run-down bedsit at the other end of this _strange_ town.

When the train had pulled up to our destination, it told us we'd arrived in Traverse Town and that it was the end of the line. It seemed far enough, we'd both been on that damn crowded train for about three hours. Sora was lucky enough to fall asleep next to me for most of the journey, his head leaning comfortably on my shoulder as the two business men sitting opposite us gave strange looks from over their laptops.

The town seemed tolerable. It wasn't the most well kept of places, and definitely didn't seem tourist friendly, but I seemed to think it'd be a refreshing change from Radiant Garden – the land of fake smiles and plastic blue skies.

The sky over in Traverse Town had dulled, and as I looked up at it with one backpack in hand, I almost saw it cracking in jealously at the sight of mine and Sora's intense blue stare. A gentle welcoming rain gradually began to shower down on us, the people around the station grumbling and flipping open their black umbrellas. But Sora and I just carried on walking, making our way out of the busy train station as the sky cried down on us.

Even though the streets were busy with people, there was still an immaculate silence that hung around the air that scared me to even let out a breath. Everybody's heads were low, either it being natural or they were protecting their faces from the miserable rain. There was no colour to the shop windows, every store, shop and bar having a neutral design palette. As we passed a tramp sitting outside a closed down store, he mumbled something to us about sparing any change. When we refused, he didn't say anything more.

It wasn't as if the town was poor or a typical 'wrong side of the tracks' place to be. It was just… depressing. As if not a single inhabitant had seen even an ounce of excitement in years.

Sora sat on his bed, watching me unpack my bag and neatly place some clothes into the tiny drawers in-between our two beds. "You reckon anyone's worried about us yet?" He quietly asked me, kicking his feet against the edge of the bed in a steady rhythm.

I snorted, reaching into my bag and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, the image instantly reminding me of that mane of red hair. "All I know is that Axel must be totally pissed."

Sora nodded slowly, contemplating on asking the next question that had come to his mind at the mention of Axel's name. I knew he had a few questions, and I knew at that moment he was dying to ask them. I _did_ say I'd talk to him about it, so I let out a breath, zipped my bag up and sat next to him gently.

I looked at him, letting him know that it was okay to shoot. Then he looked at me, biting his lip. "There's something going on between you two, isn't there?"

"Is it that obvious?"

Sora edged himself forward, ready to burst with another fifty-thousand questions that sat on the tip of his tongue, but he held himself back, edging around his words carefully. "I would ask you to explain everything, but I know you're going to be stubborn about it."

My eyes lingered to the side, wondering whether I should be honest with Sora. I knew for a fact Sora wasn't the type of person to be a loud mouth about other people's business, especially one as private as mine. It was just Axel's trust that was on the line. It was obvious he didn't want anyone to know about what happened.

Sora was a good kid though, he would never let Axel know that I totally betrayed his trust.

My eyes focused again, letting them fall to my knees. I thought to myself how I'd say it. _"Yeah Axel and I had a fight then we ended up sleeping together". _I winced. No matter how I told it, it was always going to be blunt because of how surreal it was.

Sora watched me as my mouth opened and closed, stopping and starting at the first word I was about to say. He gave me a sympathetic look, knowing what I was trying to say was hard. I just wished he could be prepared for how shocked he was going to be. Innocent, naïve, little Sora.

I sighed in defeat, not wanting to fuss over it any longer. "I slept with him."

Sora didn't react, only looked at me dumbfounded. "What?"

Then I looked at him, giving him a look of total seriousness, that I wasn't joking and I wasn't fooling around and that what I said I did not mean literally.

Sora's eyes became a little wider as seconds flew by, noting how serious I actually looked. "You…?"

"Yes, Sora. The hard thing explaining is _why_."

Sora paled a little, turning his head forward and keeping his back painfully straight. Then I made an irritated noise in my throat.

"Sorry, but you asked."

"No, no. I know. I just… never thought it'd happen."

I frowned. "Huh?"

"Does this mean that you two are…?"

I closed my eyes. Sora was being as naïve as ever. "No, not at all."

"Why the hell not?!"

I kept my cool. "Sora, it's not that simple. We didn't have sex because we love each other or whatever, it was something different, like something we had to do."

"But you enjoyed it?"

I froze, my mind falling back to that night, remembering how hot everything was. How Axel's face gasped against mine as we rocked back and forth. How he looked so fucking sexy and almost godly. How incredible I actually felt. How feelings I'd never even known before swept over my body in a wash of ecstasy. How Axel made me feel so… amazing. Of course I fucking enjoyed it.

My shoulders hunched, my expression bleak and defeated. My mind was playing tricks on me. It was unnatural for such feelings to suddenly hit me and make me feel so incredibly alone. I felt a small hand on my knee, and I looked up to Sora's understanding expression.

"Roxas, stop being stubborn and tell me the truth. Why do you talk about Axel as if he means nothing to you?"

I was silent for a few seconds, letting Sora squeeze my knee a little for reassurance. "Because I don't _want_ him to mean anything, because at the end of the day I'll never mean as much to him."

"That's total crap, and you know it."

"Is it? He has _Demyx_ to make him feel totally amazing."

Sora smiled, and then I noticed that I'd just blindly admitted how Axel made me feel, but I didn't care.

He let go of my knee, looking up at the wall opposite us. "You know, I talk to Demyx a lot when we're in music lessons. I talk to him about nearly everything," he let out a small chuckle, "he's a really easy guy to talk to."

I scowled at the floor, wondering why Sora was praising him so much right infront of me.

"We talk about all kinds of things. He mostly likes to talk about his music and his collection of guitars and amps. But you know, whenever I ask him about Axel, he shrugs it off like it doesn't matter." Sora furrowed his brow, a little confused. "It wasn't as if he was uncomfortable with the topic, he just… he didn't seem to care."

I frowned aswell, suddenly intrigued about their relationship and if Demyx really cared about Axel at all. I looked at Sora, eager for him to carry on.

Then Sora looked at me. "Has Axel ever admitted that he was inlove with Demyx?"

I thought to myself, racking my brain over all the conversations I'd ever had with Axel and trying to pin-point the word 'love'. Then I remembered. "He said it once, but we'd had a fight and he was stupidly drunk and probably just trying to get on my nerves."

I remembered back to that night, we were both seventeen, the night before Axel's eighteenth birthday.

"_Axel, hurry up," I mumbled, trudging myself down the darkened street, trying to head home and straight into bed. I had Namine next to me, she wasn't too drunk, just a little tired and quiet. I held her hand and was tugging her forwards, eager to get back to the flat._

_Axel was a few feet behind us, stumbling over his footing with a beer in his hand and muttering incoherent things to himself. We'd both had a lot to drink, and my mind was too exhausted to play up to Axel's drunken annoying ways._

_I looked sideways towards Namine as she let out a gentle yawn, scuffing her sandals across the pavement. "You okay?" I asked gently, giving her hand a little squeeze._

_She smiled and turned her head toward me. "Tired," she replied. I gave her a warm smile and leaned my head to kiss her cheek._

"_Guys, what time is it?" Axel blurted out loudly, stopping and leaning against the outside wall of someone's house. Namine and I stopped and turned around, myself giving him a harsh glare._

"_It's time for bed, so stop stopping and get moving."_

_Namine gave a bored expression towards Axel. "Yeah, come on Axel, let's go already."_

"_Oh get bent Namine."_

_Namine's eyes widened and a low angry growl rose from my throat. "Axel! What the fuck is your problem?"_

_Axel sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Nothing, nevermind," he mumbled and carried on walking, heading straight past us with a gentle wobble. I glared at him through furious eyes as he walked past._

"_Sorry," I mumbled to Namine._

_Namine shook her head. "It's okay, he's just drunk I guess."_

"_Still, he's being a prick," I said, glaring at Axel's back as we started walking again._

"_Ha!" Axel burst again, swooping himself around and pinning his gaze into mine. "If you don't like my boyfriend, then I won't like your girlfriend," he said, pointing directly at Namine. "Simple as that!"_

_Namine frowned, a little confused at the statement._

_I rolled my eyes at his childish behaviour. "I don't not like De-"_

"_BULL! SHIT!"_

_Namine and I froze, a little startled at his outburst. I wasn't used to Axel being this aggressive when Namine was around, he'd usually keep his cool for my sake. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to shout back at him in fear of scaring her or making her uncomfortable, so I had to bite my tongue._

_Axel stalked forwards and I knew he was ready to explode at me, just by the look in those intense green eyes. Lucky for me, Namine spoke up quietly._

"_Roxas, I'll head back to the flat okay? I'll let you two talk."_

_I thought about it, wondering whether it'd be safe for her to walk back on her own. It was only down the road, and right now it seemed like the only solution. Axel was too drunk to back down on me now, so I quickly nodded my head and passed her my keys. "See you later," I said, giving her a small kiss and she smiled, walking past Axel and away from us both._

_We were both silent until she was out of eye's sight. Then I looked at Axel with a death glare, inwardly sighing at this whole situation. "Okay, so what have I done this time?"_

_Instead of a loud, angry reply, Axel stalked toward me and looked at me with searching eyes. "You've done nothing but been a sarcastic prick toward Demyx all night. Why the fuck can't you just get along with him?"_

_I glared at him. "Because I just can't. I don't have to get along with _everyone_ Axel."_

"_You could at least try!"_

_I groaned, running a hand down my face. "Axel, it's too late for this, come on."_

"_Has he ever done anything to you? Said anything? Made you feel shit?" He asked, knowing the answers already. _

_My eyes went back to its usual worn out glare as I was getting really annoyed. _

_Axel stepped forward. "Or is it jealousy?" He asked carefully. _

_I frowned, my mouth opening in curious confusion. _

"_Does he have something that you don't?"_

_My eyes wavered unconsciously, that statement digging right into my nerves and plunging right into my very soul. And back then, for the life of me, I couldn't explain why._

_Axel noticed my reaction, his expression curling into something curious as my eyes became hollow. Then he decided to dig even further, decided to hit the nail on the head, never breaking his eyes contact. "I love him," he breathed, making the statement so believable I lost my breath, and eventually I had to look away towards the floor. Knowing Axel had really hit a nerve, he leaned forward, "so cut the shit."_

_Then he backed off and stalked away, leaving me standing there not knowing what to do at all. Axel could be the most evil kind of creature when he wanted to be, and right then he'd proven that to its deepest. He knew exactly how to break me, and it seemed he wasn't shy about it when he was extremely pissed off._

I gripped my hands on the bedsheets, anger building inside me at the memory. A few days after that event I made myself believe he'd only said that to get to me. He couldn't love Demyx, it just wasn't Axel at all to love _anyone_.

Sora shuffled in his position, noticing how tense I'd gotten. "I can tell when someone's inlove or not, and even if you weren't good at predicting that kind of thing, anyone would know that Demyx does not love Axel."

I sighed loudly, finding myself annoyed. "What does love have to do with any of this anyway?"

Sora frowned, leaning forward a little, agitated with my tone. "Because love could be such a simple explanation for someone like you and Axel. You both care about each other so much no matter how much you deny it, you've put it up with him for so many years, he's always the first person you-"

"Sora," I interrupted him sternly, getting tired of him trying to convince me that I was _inlove_ with my best friend, like some sort of cliché romance novel. Love was such a simple thing, it was definitely not the right explanation for what was going on. "I do not love Axel."

Sora's frowned deepened. "Maybe because you refuse to understand what love is, because you're the most stubborn person I've ever met."

I rose to my feet quickly, running a hand through my hair with a deep sigh. "All Axel and I ever do it argue about shit. How is that love?"

Sora scoffed. "You'd be surprised how much you _don't_ argue. Maybe that's the only thing you focus on because it bothers you so much. Have you ever tried _not_ arguing back at him?"

"Look Sora, no offense, but this is ridiculous. You sound like a marriage counsellor," I said as calmly as I could and grabbed my coat, throwing it over myself and digging into the pockets to pull out Axel's pack of cigarettes. "Let's just drop it."

Sora threw up his hands in annoyed defeat then leaned himself back on the bed. "I don't get why you can't seem to care," he mumbled, looking up at the ceiling.

I rolled my eyes, plucking out a cigarette and holding it between my lips. I hadn't needed a smoke in so long until this moment. I realised that I hadn't had any cravings for one these past few days, which seemed slightly weird considering everything that had happened.

I zipped up my coat and looked at Sora who was fiddling with the edges of his red t-shirt. My eyes fixed on him or a second. "Why do you care so much?"

Sora's eyes travelled to mine, his fingers pausing. "Because I think _someone_ should."

"But it's _my_ problem. Why do you feel the need to care?"

"I just told you."

"No, Sora," I frowned, walking towards him to try and get my point across. I took the unlit cigarette from out of my lips. "There's something else isn't there? There's something you're not telling me."

Sora didn't reply, only frowned and began fidgeting again only a little more roughly.

A small part of me regretted what I'd told him in the first place. "You're getting riled up about all this for no reason…" I said softly.

"It's stupid how you think you can brush off something like that," he muttered abruptly.

"What else am I supposed to do?!"

"Talk to Axel about it!"

I growled in my throat in a habited, annoyed tone, swivelling my body away from him and taking a few steps forward to the centre of the small room. "It's not that simple. This kind of thing has never happened before. Even that time I kissed him when we were kids, we never dared to talk about it again." I sighed and ran a shaky hand through my golden hair, wishing and wishing and hoping and praying that this entire ordeal had never even happened at all. "This is a lot more complicated than a kiss… so it's a lot more awkward. I just don't _know_ what to say to him." My tone became a little softer. "He made it pretty obvious that he'd rather forget about it anyway."

Sora sat up. "And you honestly believe that?" he sighed. When I didn't answer he looked up at me. "Would you do it again?"

I paused, thinking about it. If Axel could make me feel that incredible on just a whim, what would it be like if he really put some effort into it? In that moment I instantly envied Demyx. "Yes," I said quietly, not realising what I said, with the hint of a moronic blush on my cheeks.

Sora's eyes widened. "You would?!"

Then _my_ eyes widened. "I would?! I mean, no, fucking no. Of course not!"

Sora grinned widely, like a little school girl who'd just been told the juiciest of juicy gossip. I shut my eyes tight with an aggravated expression, inwardly punching myself at what I'd so stupidly said.

"I need some air," I said quickly, shoving he cigarette back in-between my lips and heading out of the door with an awkward slam.

xxx

Riku sighed to himself, holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear. "Axel, I told you, Roxas hasn't said anything about going anywhere to me. Have you tried asking your mum?"

Axel slammed the fridge door closed on the other end of the line, noting how hollow it sounded as it rattled from the force. "She knows nothing," Axel mumbled, stalking out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Riku was sat at his desk, writing up an English report that was due in the next day, trying to concentrate as hard as he could despite Axel's constant grumbling on the other end. "Why don't you go and stay with Demyx until he comes back?"

"I probably will. But I'd rather be sat in my own fucking home eating my own fucking food, you know?"

Riku put his pen down on his desk and held the phone with his hand. As if he knew what to suggest to the redhead, he had no clue. "Look, if you wonna take your mind off of things, our lot are going down the beach tonight to just chill out. I know it won't help in the long run but at least it'd give you a chance to calm down."

"I am calm, Riku!" Axel shouted, kicking a cabinet harshly with his booted foot.

Riku rolled his eyes at the sound of something crashing then hearing Axel's curses following through. "Just come along. You'll enjoy it. Let Dem know about it aswell, okay?"

"Yeah," Axel muttered, picking up an empty bottle of vodka and scanning it curiously. When did he drink this much?

"By the way, Axel," Riku said, tone going deadly serious.

Axel put the bottle back where it was, waiting for Riku to carry on.

"Have you spoken to Sora recently?"

"I rang him this morning… why?"

Riku paused, thinking to himself. "Strange. He's not answering his phone anymore."

Axel scoffed, putting a hand to his hip. "Well at least we know that _he_ could never run away anytime soon."

Riku shook his head in dismay, his silver bangs flopping over his face delicately. He picked up his pen again but paused at the paper, his mind suddenly going blank. "You know, it would probably be the best thing for him…"

xxx

As I'd left the hotel in search of a little exploring, my feet found themselves standing in the doorway of a local bar, the left foot telling me to go ahead and order a drink, the right one screaming at me to turn around and leave.

The various eyes that had darted towards me were obviously telling me I wasn't welcome there. Maybe it was because of how young I looked. Or maybe everyone in this town was as cold as its wind, and didn't take too kindly to outsiders. However when I looked ahead at the bar itself, the bartender had only glanced at me once before returning to his stare at the beer glass he was drying with a dish clothe. Like any normal bartender would. With that tiny encouragement at hand, I took my chances and slowly picked up my feet towards him.

Once I'd got a little closer, his beaten down eyes glanced up at me again, watching me take a seat on one of the stools. By now I couldn't even see the harsh glares behind me, so I eventually forgot about them as I pulled the stool in with my legs.

"Got any vodka?" I asked, trying not to make my voice loud enough to break the silence in the room.

The bartender, who I'd now taken a closer look at, eyed me with a suspicious blue gaze. "You got any ID, kid?"

I pulled out my wallet, used to this kind of thing, and handed him a card. He scanned it for a brief few seconds, then let out a sigh.

"'Kay, whatever."

I frowned, putting the card away. The man looked to be no older than me, his skin still pale and young, his hair looking soft and blonde in an arrange of messy spikes. It was just his eyes that gave him away, they looked as if they'd had years of life experience, and judging by how worn down they looked, not many of them being good ones to remember.

"This place always so quiet?" I asked, surprised at myself at the sudden conversation starter.

The man's eyes flickered toward mine for a second as he reached up and pulled down a glass. His expression was blank, so I couldn't quite tell if he was going to ignore me or not. The people around here were so weird I half expected him to very well ignore me and leave me to my own lonely silence.

He poured a vodka shot into a glass, then pushed it toward me, stopping and staring at me weirdly. "Yeah, yeah it is."

I nodded slowly, keeping my eyes fixed on his in bewilderment. Why was he staring so hard at me?

When he returned to the dish clothe, his eyes finally averting from mine, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. It didn't matter how beaten those eyes looked, it was the most intense few seconds of my _life_.

"Where you from, kid?" His quiet voice pricked my ears and I found my gaze looking down at the small glass in front of me, fingering it lightly in habit. Was it _that _obvious that I was out of town?

"Radiant Garden," I said a little sheepishly.

When I looked up again, I'd noticed a small change in his eyes once he'd heard what I said, a change so small he was probably trying to hide it away. I paused, looking at him questioningly, and he averted his gaze. "That's a while away, ain't it?"

I shrugged. "Needed to get away."

"And you come here of all places?"

I picked up the glass, eyeing it for a second, then swigging the clear liquid down my throat, feeling the sensation burn and rip as it ran down my body. I didn't wince though, in fear of looking stupid. Then I took a breath, putting the glass down on the counter.

"I guess fate brought me here."

The man was watching me again after what I'd said, and I couldn't help but feel a little annoyed about it now. So I returned the gaze in a stronger stance, as if my gaze was asking him what hell his problem was. But he didn't look away this time, only let a twitch of a smile form on his lips.

My brows knitted together, but the bartender only brought out the bottle and poured another shot into the sticky glass. "On me."

I watched as he poured the vodka into the small glass, then I looked back at his eyes. "Why?"

He only shrugged. "Think of it as a welcoming gift. It's all you'll be getting around here, I tell you kid."

I picked up the glass, eyeing it once more before bringing it to my lips. "Stop calling me kid," I muttered before gulping the liquid down.

The man watched me again, not surprisingly threatened by my tone whatsoever. "Then what should I call you?"

I thought about it. Should I really be telling this strange blonde bartender my name? A strange blond bartender in an even stranger depressing town? Hell, I didn't really care. "Roxas," I said.

The man nodded. "Name's Cloud."

"Cloud?" I repeated, letting the name adjust in my head. "Bet the bullies loved that name in school," I mumbled, half snorting to myself as I shuffled in my seat to get comfy.

The man, now known as _Cloud_, stared at me again. "Not really. I was one of them."

I looked at him funny. He had to be joking. Him? A high school bully? He was thin, blonde, blue eyed with freckles around his nose. What on earth was so threatening about _that_? The look on my face must have told him I wasn't buying it, but he just looked right at me, dead serious.

"Were you one of the lackeys? The one the just shouted encouragement to the real bullies from the back of the crowd?" I asked, hoping to spring some humour into the conversation.

Before I even had time to think if what I said was funny or not, Cloud's arm had quickly reached out and grabbed ahold of my collar, forcefully pulling and leaning me forward over the bar counter in a vice like grip. My eyes nearly popped out of my sockets at the shock, the strain around my neck soon beginning to hurt.

"You tell me," he said to my face in a tone that made me want to run away like a scared little rabbit. What was this guy doing?!

I heard scraping of chairs behind me, feeling the broad men that had eyed me dangerously earlier step to their feet at the sight of me being near-choked by the honourable bartender. It was then I started to get really pathetically scared. The only thing rushing through my mind at that point was how pissed I knew Axel would be if he knew what this guy was doing, and that he'd probably step up to save my life if he were here. But Axel wasn't here, I'd ran like a stupid idiot from him and now I was going to be slaughtered by a freckle faced bartender for reasons I still had no idea of.

Cloud just looked up from over my head to the men with the sceptical glances, simply putting his free hand up as if to say 'it's alright, I've got this'. Great, so he was going to kill me with his own dirty hands, somehow the strength in his grip told me it really wouldn't have a difference anyway. This was still going to be painful.

Then the grip around my collar suddenly let go, and in an act of huge relief I scurried to my feet, standing fearfully away from the bar counter. I rubbed my neck, trying to breathe as I eyed Cloud, scared for my life.

Cloud simply shrugged, putting his hands up. "You shouldn't make fun of people, Roxas."

"But you-"

"Don't judge people by appearances," he cut with a serious tone to his voice. "Now, have another drink… as an apology from me."

I threw a dumbfounded look to him, my hand still rubbing my neck. What the crap just happened? Did that even happen at all? I did not trust this guy anymore. I didn't even think I trusted this _town_ anymore.

"Come on, sit down." He started pouring another shot of vodka into the glass again. I had to wonder why the hell he suddenly wanted me to sit at his bar after I'd apparently pissed him off and bruised his ego. Surely I'd have been thrown out by the dirty looking men behind me by now, either that or by Cloud himself. But no, he was insisting I sit down and have another damn drink.

After he'd finished pouring the drink, I was still standing there looking a little dazed and confused. Cloud sighed, placing the bottle back on the shelf behind him. "You gonna stand there all day?"

I frowned, suddenly finding my voice again "What the hell was _that_ for?!"

He gave me a bored look, resting one hand on the counter.

Before I could retort at his extremely unnecessary calm appearance, a loud bark of laughter shot from behind me, one of the men apparently amused by the situation at hand. I grit my teeth, the laughter blending into a voice. "Cloud, you picking on the nippers again?"

Without tearing his eyes from mine, Cloud calmly replied to the man, "Can it, Cid."

But the man decided to ignore that and instead rose to his feet, causing me to cast my eyes to the side at the sound of footsteps slowly making their way toward us. Then low and behold, the gruff looking man stood next to myself in the middle of the room, patting a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at the man who was grinning back at Cloud, then I soon noticed he was leading me back to my seat by the bar. "Come on, kid, don't be put of by Cloud's anti-social behaviour, he won't really hurt ya."

I wasn't too sure, but it looked like I didn't really have a choice as I was sat down onto my stool, and low and behold, the man sat on the stool next to me with a smile I couldn't quite make out. It wasn't a hostile smile, but it definitely wasn't a friendly one either.

Cloud eyed the man, resting his hand on the surface of the counter as the man known as Cid made himself comfortable. "Pour us a beer would ya Cloud?"

Cloud huffed but did at his job required, stepping away from us both and heading to the other end of the bar to the beer pumps. I tore my eyes from Cloud's back to the slick blonde haired man next to me.

"Roxas, was it?"

"Uh…"

"The name's Cid if you hadn't guessed. Work down at the garage a few blocks from here."

I nodded, not helping but feel a little intimidated at this whole situation. Here I was, known as a 'kid' to these people, being mentally ordered around and thrown all sorts of questions.

Cid hunched forward, pointing his finger towards Cloud as he searched the shelf for a beer glass. "He's a real softy at heart, don't feel like ya have to be treadin' on egg shells around him."

I gave him a strange look. "He almost _choked_ me."

Cid let out a gruff laugh, the type of strong laugh you'd hear from any local bar-type. "He wouldn't 'ave actually tried to kill ya, he was just proving a fair point, kid."

"But I was _joking_," I mumbled with a pout, sinking down.

"Yeah you probably were, but that's Cloud for ya," he said, eyeing Cloud who was still looking for a glass and looking a little lost as he did so. Cid looked back at me. "Say, Roxas…"

Cid's tone had died down a whole lot, and I could just _feel_ the seriousness kick in.

"Ya said ya were from Radiant Garden?"

I nodded.

"Ya know a man named Squall Leonhart?"

Leonhart. Leonhart? Where had I heard that name before? The only Leonhart I knew was _Mr._ Leonhart, my Biology teacher… how could my boring Biology teacher have anything in common with these brutes? However, I had no idea if he was talking about the same person. Squall? The name _really_ didn't seem to suit him well.

I shrugged at him, drawing patterns on the wood of the surface with my finger. "I have a biology teacher called Mr. Leonhart."

Cid frowned, looking a little confused. "Brown hair? Huge scar across 'is face?"

I thought to myself, trying to picture his face in my head. He _did_ have brown hair, and yeah, he was well known for his all-too-obvious scar that slit diagonally across his nose.

I nodded. "That's the one."

Cid looked surprised, his huge eyes travelling forward a little. "Well, shit. A biology teacher? Who would've guessed."

I frowned. "Uh, what?"

Cid looked at me, eyeing me suspiciously for a moment before sighing. "Him and Cloud, they used to be close, very close. Don't think Cloud's seen that guy for almost five or six years, but not a day goes by that I don't notice he still feels a little sentimental about him."

My mouth gaped. "They were… lovers?"

Cid nodded and I couldn't help but let my face turn undoubtedly shocked. Mr Leonhart did not seem to be Cloud's type at all. He was proper, seemed like a real gentlemen at heart no matter how harsh he was in class. The type that had a petite house wife and two kids waiting for him at home. But Cloud? His ex-lover? That _was_ a story to tell.

I swallowed, and without evening thinking as to why this conversation had popped up in the first place, I asked, "Why'd they break it off?"

Instead of answering, Cid looked forward a little startled, noticing Cloud stood right in front of us with a sour look and a beer full to the brim in one hand.

The tension was thick, brutally thick. I noticed Cid seemed to sink in his stool a little sheepishly and all I could do was look away. I didn't really know whether to feel embarrassed or foolish. Probably both.

After a few torturing moments of awkward silence, Cloud spoke. "Because he was the worst person I'd ever met," Cloud said in an icy breath, slamming the beer on the counter then glaring at me with the most revealing eyes I'd ever seen, and I suddenly understood him clearly. Then he walked through the bar and into the back room, making his mood clear by the harsh bang of the door.

I watched after him, my mind trying to comprehend the look that was in his clear blue eyes before he left. Then I realised. "He was lying…"

Cid scoffed next to me, taking the beer in his hand and slurping on the froff on the top. "Glad you caught onto that. His eyes give him away far too much. Until he hides them peepers away, he's like a damn open book."

I looked down at the empty counter, feeling quite lost. The image of the expression in Cloud's eyes didn't seem to leave my mind. "Cid," I said quietly, "tell me what happened."

Cid sighed. "It's not my story to tell, kid."


	8. Chapter 8

Sometimes going to social gatherings to try and clear your head really wasn't the most intelligent thing to do

_Sorry for the impeccable delay to this chapter, and that it's rather small. I have a lot of my plate right now involving college, new job, fact I'__ve got to find somewhere to live pretty soon… so yeah. But the good news is I haven't lost interest in this, just literally haven't had time._

_Love to those still reading_

xxx

Sometimes going to social gatherings to try and clear your head really wasn't the most intelligent thing to do. Axel had learnt this after sitting in the circle of his closest friends, the night sky that darkened the beach sand making the atmosphere slightly more intense, listening as every word he heard constantly reminded him of the very thing that he was trying to clear in the first place. "blonde-bimbo" "short-cake" "delicious" "complete-douchebag" "hot" and "foolish" were the ones that really stuck out. He wouldn't have minded too much, if Demyx weren't nibbling on his ear and running his hand under his t-shirt every so often. It made him feel completely weird. When the only thing he could think about was running as fast as it was, he could only imagine it being a certain person with golden blonde hair doing those devilish things to him. It made Axel feel totally uneasy that his mind was playing such cruel jokes on him ever since… that night.

So he found himself sat alone on the shoreline, smoking a cigarette and watching the dark waves of the ocean crash into each other and try and slither their way towards his feet, but never quite making it.

He really had no idea what to do with himself. He was half convinced that everything that had happened was just a fluke, that it was just a weird point in his life where random things just happen, then they're totally forgotten a few weeks later. Yeah, he was _half_ convinced. But that didn't change the fact that he could not stop thinking about it. It almost pained him. He felt as if he'd messed up big time and that there wasn't a thing he could do to make it better.

I wasn't happy. And it really fucking _hurt_ him, _pained_ him to realise that he'd made me feel like shit. He knew what he'd done, and he knew he wished he could turn back time. It wasn't just painful for me, he thought, it was fucking agony for himself aswell.

As Axel stared across into the night sky, hearing his friends joking and laughing behind him in the distance, he remembered back to when he was young, he must have been about fourteen, and that he really honestly thought he was in love with me.

He quietly laughed to himself at the memory. He was _fourteen_. What fourteen year old knew or understood what love was? He'd watched his parents love each other and seen and heard it on the television more than a few times. He watched with his young green eyes as the two people felt utter contentment with each other. They'd smile all the time, never be upset, always seeming to have fun and just generally being the happiest people in the world. That's exactly what he'd felt with me back then, he would always have fun with me and I'd always make him utterly happy.

But then he saw the intimate side of it. Kissing, touching and eventually sex. He pondered on what it'd be like with me, really took an interest in how it'd feel. He imagined straight away that it'd be totally gross, but then he really got thinking about it. Granted he'd seen gay guys before, but it never affected him because he wasn't brought up that way. His mother was strict on keeping his son anti-prejudice, but Axel hadn't even known what that meant. So really, Axel wasn't too against the idea at all. Which then led his original theory of being inlove with me to be even stronger than before.

But after a year of silence, not a word spoken to me about the constant confusion rattling in his mind, I'd told him about Namine, and he started to think that he didn't know anymore. Yeah, he felt crushed and felt like a complete idiot for thinking that maybe I felt the same about him. He never asked me, because he was too scared. So after seeing me around Namine, watching me play out all the love stories he'd seen before on TV, he declared that it was a stupid thing to think in the first place. So then he tried to get over it, tried to drown out his weird feelings for me, and when he found Demyx, he finally did.

"Hey, Axel?"

Axel was brought out of his thoughts by the soft voice and the hand on his shoulder, then he noticed Riku's presence behind him, staring down at him with a concerned look strewn across his face.

Axel faced forward again. "What's with the look?"

Riku pulled his hand off of his shoulder, standing and staring out before him at the ocean. "It's weird saying this, but I'm worried about you."

Axel just laughed, taking a drag of the cigarette in his fingers.

Riku took that as an okay sign, and decided to sit next to him on the sand. "Demyx is worried too, he asked me to talk to you since you won't say a word to him."

Axel sighed gently, eyes falling down. "Really? And what makes you think I'll say anything more to you?"

Riku moved his solemn eyes towards Axel's feet. "I don't know, I thought I should give it a try."

"Go away, Riku."

Riku looked at Axel's face, his long silver hair blowing at the slight breeze. Not one to simply be put off by Axel's attitude, he carried on, "The least I know is that it's about Roxas."

"Seriously Riku, go away," Axel growled, even though he was sure Riku was not gonna go anywhere.

Riku let out a breath, folding his arms over his hunched up legs, thinking to himself. Axel just stayed silent, finishing his cigarette and flicking it into the wet sand infront of him. Riku watched as the butt lost its orangey glow once the water had drowned it out.

"Remember that time when we were kids, you told me…" Riku started quietly, "you told me that you loved someone."

Axel rolled his eyes, not believing the utter evil coincidence that was going on. Riku now pumping up the memory he'd had a few moments ago, that he was now trying to rid of. His head was pounding.

"I laughed it off, because I was kid aswell, you know. But after a couple years I realised that you were serious. I knew it wasn't Demyx…"

Axel's head really was beginning to hurt, too many thoughts swirling around his head and too many memories making an abrupt appearance in his mind. Axel looked to Riku's side seriously, his brows furrowed together. He was getting angry. He didn't want to talk about it, and just knowing Riku wouldn't drop the subject easily made him want to punch him hard enough to block out his speech, but instead he vented his anger in just one simple sentence, "Whatever you're thinking right now, you're wrong," he said a tone so harsh Axel noticed that Riku had to clench his fists together.

Riku looked at Axel, a look so cold it could silence an entire army. Axel just glared back in defence of his own pride. Riku wasn't angry, he was just sick and tired of hearing the same thing every day, watching everything between Axel and I play out like some sort of lazy unrehearsed play, everything going wrong because no one bothered to simply _learn_ something. "I don't think I am, and you fucking know it."

With that, Riku got up off the ground and headed straight back to the others, leaving his clearly pissed off aroma behind him to linger in Axel's mind. Axel clenched his teeth together in a frustrated snarl, wishing there was something or someone to punch right now. But before his rashness could get the better of him, a flash of silver light caught the corner of his eye. His trusty lighter, shimmering in the moonlight.

xxx

By the time Cloud had returned from the back room and made his way toward us with a look of thunder, Cid had already finished his drink and was awaiting another. I didn't ask for anything, in fear of getting my head bitten off. So I just sat there quietly while Cid started grumbling, cocking his eyes at his empty beer glass.

Cloud slowly walked up us and took the empty glass out of Cid's hand, reluctantly going to fill it back up at the other end of the bar.

"'Bout time too," Cid mumbled, leaning his arms on the counter, then shifting his gaze toward me. "You not drinkin' anything?"

I shrugged. "Cloud's already forced three vodka shots down me, and I don't think Sora would be happy if I went back stinking drunk."

Cid nodded. "Sora?"

"A friend."

A snuff. "Obviously. He come out here with ya?"

My eyes lingered towards Cloud who was pouring beer into the glass from the pump, and I suddenly lost interest in the conversation. "Does Cloud own this bar?"

"Yeah, ever since Zack passed away. He's been keeping this place up to shape in respects to him," Cid warmly smiled, "he's a good kid, that Cloud."

"So how does he know Mr. Leonha- Uh, Squall."

"From what I remember him telling me a while ago, when he lived in Radiant Garden they were in school together, then I guess it kicked off from there."

I lifted my head, suddenly intrigued. "He used to live in Radiant Garden? Is that why he got so freaked when I mentioned it?"

Cid didn't answer, just looked to the side. I turned my head and low and behold, Cloud was stood there, a feel of familiarity washing over me. He stood there with a scowl, holding the beer glass tight in his hand.

"You should really stop talking about me when I'm only a few feet away."

I winced. How did that happen again? Now I felt _really_ stupid. Cid just laughed this time, obviously finding the de-ja-vu hilarious. Cloud didn't find it the least bit amusing as he moved the edge of the glass sideways over the sink, daring to pour it all right down the drain. Cid stopped laughing quickly, coughing to steady himself as he eyed the beer in fear of it all going to waste.

Cloud gave a satisfied smirk and handed it to Cid, who took it without a second thought. "Phew. Anyway, I'll leave you to it, Roxas," he said as he got up from his stool, holding the beer in his hand, "was nice meetin' ya an' all."

"Yeah," I mumbled distantly, watching him walk back to the group of men at the back of the room. When he sat down he put the glass down on the table and rubbed his hand together at the sight of cards being laid down on the surface. It looked like he wanted in on the game. I never took him for a gambler…

As the silence hit me, I decided to take a quick look at my phone to see if I had gotten any important messages. It was still the first day, and I was already turning my phone back on. How typical…

No messages. I didn't know if I felt relieved or disappointed.

The clanking of glasses being shuffled behind me brought me back and I faced forward, noticing Cloud neatly tidying the shelf filled with a variety of different glasses fitted for all kinds of alcoholic beverages.

I placed my phone on the side and I shuffled my feet on the foot bar of my stool, wondering if it were a good time to leave. I suppose no one wanted me for anything else in the bar, so I guessed now was a better time than any. But something stopped me. I felt a gaze burning toward me, and I looked up toward Cloud's sudden stare. What the hell? Was it like he could read my damn thoughts or something?!

I said the first thing that came to my head. "I'm sorry for… the insult earlier, and the, er, talking about you with Cid and stuff. I guess I've been nothing but a jerk ever since I got here."

Cloud didn't flinch, only shrugged. "Don't worry about it."

As silence fell among the two of us again, I suddenly felt compelled to ask. "Has Squall always had that scar on his face?"

Cloud did flinch this time, only a tiny bit, but a demeaning flinch none the less. "No."

I gave out a soft chuckle to try and ease the tension looming around him, but as normal Cloud didn't really react, just stood there with a totally blank face. It was annoying meeting people like that, because you could never know how they were feeling. Cloud could've been laughing hysterically in his head yet still have only a look of murder written on his face. Only problem was his all-too-revealing eyes, and he did not appear amused. "Sorry, I've just always been curious about-"

"I gave him that scar."

It took me a little time to take in what he'd said, but when I did, my eyes widened. I didn't really know what to think of what he'd said for a second, I would never have thought that any _person_ had made that scar on my biology teacher's face, it looked way too painfully deep. I assumed he'd had some sort of freak accident. But when I noticed Cloud was being completely serious, as usual, I was speechless. His eyes simply shifted toward the ground.

"W-why? Why would you do a thing like that?" I hushed, a little too loudly.

Cloud's brows knitted together and his muscles tensed. "Look, kid. You can't just burst into my bar and throw all these uninvited memories at me. Why the fuck are you even here?"

My mouth gaped at his outburst, but I didn't want to lose my voice at this point. "I'm here because I'm trying to hide from a lot of things. I didn't _plan_ to wind up here."

Cloud glared at me, holding onto the edge of the bar in a tight grip. "Fine. Just don't ever mention _him_ again to me. Or you will fucking regret it."

I took that threat on the chin, and just equalled his glare. "Fine."

Then suddenly an abrupt cheery ringtone rang through the air, my phone vibrating fiercely on the side of the bar. I winced, a little embarrassed at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme tune ringing loudly throughout the bar, causing a few people to turn their heads, and Cloud to rise one eyebrow at me.

I huffed and picked it up, noticing the word AXEL flashing on the screen.

Shit.

Cloud watched my worried face, crossing his arms over his chest when I just stared at the noisy vibrating phone in my hand. "You going to answer that or what?"

I took a brief look at Cloud before pressing the 'ignore' button, then sitting stiff in my seat.

"Looks like you've just seen a ghost," Cloud carefully said, eyeing me suspiciously.

I ignored Cloud's remark. I was still pondering to myself. I couldn't decide whether to turn my phone off right now or not, and it was pissing me off that I couldn't just decide and do it. "Shit," I whispered to myself. "Shit, shit, double shit shite."

It started ringing in my hand again, and I flinched hard. The theme tune rang through the bar, and lots of people started to grumble behind me, obviously getting double annoyed this time. Before I could debate with the sensible side of my head, I stupidly pressed 'answer' and held the phone to my ear, looking terrified.

I didn't even bother to say anything, just heard the other end silently, before a small voice followed through the other end.

"Roxas?"

Axel's voice was so calm. So unbelievably calm. It was like music to my ears, made me sink in my position, waiting for him to talk again.

"You there? Shit, Roxas, stop scaring me," he growled slightly this time. It made me grip the phone tighter with my already clammy hand.

"Answer me you little shit!" _That_ was the Axel I knew, and it seemed to calm me down a bit. As I listened closely, I could hear the sound of waves in the background, and unless there was a huge difference in time from here to there (unlikely), it was the late hours of the evening.

I frowned. "Are you at the beach?"

I huge sigh of relief ran through my hearing followed by a series of 'thank god your okay', 'I thought you'd died or something', 'thank fucking god'.

"Are you at the beach?" I repeated.

"Yeah, I am. With everyone else, but they're behind me doing stuff."

"Why are you on your own?" It was the only thing concerning me, and I didn't know why.

"Shit, Roxas, shut up. Where the _hell_ are you?"

I knew it was coming, maybe that's why I'd cleverly managed to start the conversation before he did. But still, I knew this would come eventually. "I've got to go."

"What? Roxas, for fuck's sake what's up with you?"

I grit my teeth. "You of all people should know."

Then he went silent, his voice dying away in that all too familiar way of him not knowing what to say next.

"Bye, Axel," I said in a disappointed sigh.

I hung up and immediately turned my phone off. He really did know when to screw up the most opportune moments to make things right. There I was, my emotions in an unmanageable pile of delicate mess for that whole two minutes, _just_ because I'd finally received some form of contact with him after a whopping 20 hours. Then there _he_ was, being the same cowardly jerk I was trying to get away from. If he'd have just gotten some guts in that phone call and said the exact thing I wanted to hear (hell knows what that is), I would probably have got up and ran all the way home for him and completely forgotten that my mother was coming to town. But Axel was Axel, and that was that.

"Axel?"

My head snapped up at Cloud's voice, and soon eased myself at Cloud's curious expression. I grumbled, sinking my shoulders. "Let's not talk about it."

"You sure? Seems like he's put you in bad mood."

I scoffed. "Look, if you're not going to talk about Squall, I'm not going to talk about Axel."

He shut up right away, and I knew he would. I hunched in my seat, folding my arms over the counter and dropping my head inside of them in a stubborn kind of movement.

"Why are you so curious?" He quietly asked, eyeing my form that annoyingly hunched over his bar.

I didn't reply to him, because I didn't know why I was so curious. I didn't think it was me being nosy, because I wasn't really a nosy person. I just… wanted to know.

"Hearing my story won't make you feel any better, kid. Even if it does settle your curiosity."

My eyes rose up to him and I gave him a gentle shrug. "I'm not easily disturbed."

Cloud pulled out a stool from under the counter with a scrape, and sat himself opposite me. He eyed me seriously once he was comfy. "I'm only going to tell you what I want you to hear, okay?"

I pulled myself up from my arms and made my back straight, wanting to pay close attention to this story. Cloud seemed like an interesting person with an interesting tale to tell, and just by the confirmation of the look in his eyes made my irritated thoughts of Axel soon melt away.

Cloud breathed in, and my ears pricked.

"You probably guessed we went to high school together, and we met in Biology class. He interested me because all I could see in him was myself. He was quiet, tough, victimised and solemn. People said we only ever had each other because we couldn't let anyone else in. It was because we couldn't trust anyone but ourselves, and because I could only see myself in him, I could only surmise but to trust him as well. I never understood how someone could relate to me so closely. So we hung out sometimes, got along alright, until we were practically really good friends.

"But I really did like him, I almost trusted him too much. After a night of studying round his house, I lost all my control and only ended up pushing him back into his room and pinning him to the bed. He was really good looking, and you know when a perfect personality and perfect looks mix together, feelings like that would only naturally takes its toll. Then after that night, both of our control had been totally torn to pieces. On some days, once we knew the toilets were empty in school, he'd push me against the wall and lift me up till my legs found themselves wrapped around his hips. We were both violent towards each other. Deep down he was a ruthless predator, always going for the kill and tearing down anything in his way. I knew this, because I was like this.

"One night alone with only myself, I started throwing things around in my bedroom, anger and frustration just crowding my trail of thoughts. I thought I was in love, when I didn't want to be. Love only causes confusion and in the end, pain. I didn't want it, but it wouldn't go away. Every time Squall came to my mind, I couldn't stop wanting to be right there with him, making him happy, making him feel like the most special person in the world. I felt sick.

"I decided to avoid him for a while. I started skipping school and I didn't answer the door or my phone. I'd tell my mum to tell everyone that I wasn't there. I spent weeks cooped up in my room until finally someone crawled through my window in the middle of the night while I was asleep. Squall climbed on top of me and the covers and roofed his hand over my mouth so I wouldn't make a sound. He was angry. He asked why I had been avoiding him, so I told him because I knew he deserved to be told the truth, and I just couldn't hold it in anymore."

Cloud fumbled on the wooden stool, his brows neatly furrowing together tightly. I could tell it was hard for him to tell me all of this, and to be fair, I felt a little harsh. But it wasn't as if I'd forced him to tell me… hadn't even laid a guilt trip on him. Just by the look on his face I could also tell he was determined to tell me everything he could, even though he didn't have to. It must have meant a lot to him.

But Cloud had paused for a while, his concentration on the counter in between us, either looking for the right words to say or the courage to actually say it.

I decided to help him out a little. I was already finding his story all too familiar, even if I didn't want to admit it. I even had some idea of what would happen next. "He… he hated you didn't he?" I hated to be blunt, but one of us had to say it.

Cloud let out a breath that he appeared to be holding for a while, and it was almost painful to hear how shaky it was. "I wished I never told him, or that I'd ever met him in the first place… because even after he almost broke my jaw, I still couldn't stop thinking about him."

I didn't know why, but I found myself holding Cloud's lower arm in comfort. I guess I just wanted him to know it was okay. I sympathized with him and I knew how it would feel to be crushed like that. Axel would do the exact same thing, I was just lucky enough to know that beforehand.

Then I suddenly realised as I'd been listening to Cloud, that I'd been picturing, the whole time, Cloud and Squall as myself and Axel.

It really made no sense to me why I was, but everything just came tumbling down on me like a ton of bricks. Now I was really finding myself in Cloud's past. Cloud had just spelt everything out for me, basically told me what I was supposed to be feeling and what would happen next. But it still didn't feel right.

I did not love Axel.

I closed my eyes. "Are you sure it was love?"

Cloud looked at my lidded eyes, and the arm that was still in my grip tensed. "Squall loved me too, he just hated it as much as I did. He didn't disappear after I'd told him, he just made sure I regretted I'd ever said it. Because he _couldn't _leave me. So yes, it was love."

My hand left Cloud's arm and I rose to my feet, the stool scraping backwards behind me. I noticed him staring at me and my abrupt movement. But I just stood there, looking at the ground, not really knowing why I'd stood up in the first place. I wanted to leave now, but I was being held back.

Cloud gave out a soft scoff of air. "It's that Axel guy, isn't it?"

My eyes widened as the harsh words left Cloud's mouth then hit right into me. Turns out I was as obvious as Cloud.

I turned around and headed for the door, not saying a word. I heard Cloud's soft voice telling me he hadn't even finished the story.

I wanted to make my own ending.


End file.
